


Abandon

by animatedrose



Series: skekTah's Adventures [5]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982)
Genre: AU to the movie, Abandonment, Banishment, Blood, Chamber of Life, Crystal Castle, Dark Woods, Death, Garthim, Gelfling, Gelfling ruins, Great Crystal, Hallucinations, Insanity, Movie Spoilers, Mutilation, Podling, Seeing the dead, Skarith, Skeksis - Freeform, Tah and Tao both change, Tah has so many issues, Tah slowly goes mad, Tah snaps, Teeth of Skreesh, Trial by Stone, Valley of the urRu, Violence, Visions, VotSatE references, crystal shard, cursed limbo, journey into the wilds, post-VotSatE series, purpose is reworked, reality is fading, references to Dark Crystal books, references to deceased Skeksis and urRu, somebody hug this poor baby, switching alliances, urRu - Freeform, urSkek - Freeform, willing snap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 06:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9536063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animatedrose/pseuds/animatedrose
Summary: A side-story to VotSatE that takes place during the movie, so this is post-VotSatE.skekTah witnesses Emperor skekSo's death and the ensuing throne challenge between skekSil and skekUng, which skekZok bows out of. Feeling betrayed by his alliance and totally alone in the castle, skekTah chooses to leave Skarith in order to protect himself from the new Emperor's hatred of him and the inevitable banishment he would gain. This guides him on a journey that crosses Thra and back again as he searches for his purpose...





	1. The Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Since I started working on "These Scars of Ours, They Will Never Heal", I decided to get going on its prequel too so you guys aren’t getting it out of order. Not that many spoilers are shared but there are a few between this and TSoOTWNH.
> 
> This is basically an AU of the movie from Trial by Stone and beyond. skekTah survives to that point and…things happen.
> 
> skekTah belongs to me. No stealing!  
> Everything else belongs to Jim Henson.

The Emperor was dead.

skekTah still couldn’t shake off the shock of that. It was silly. He’d known it was coming. The instant skekTek the Scientist declared that the Emperor was ill, the subtext was obvious—death was imminent. But the Emperor had hung on for so long, it almost seemed impossible for such a fate to occur.

But it had.

Emperor skekSo was bundled away in a casket, black and gold, dust and coagulated fluid. A sight that they had all seen many times before.

The funeral did not change much. More respect was held. The ritual was more lavish. skekZok pulled all the stops for it, whether spontaneously or because he’d preplanned this several dozen trine ago.

The funeral was not the main focus of tension, though. It was the empty throne. The ownerless scepter of high office. The position of power above the rest of them—Emperor.

Once the funeral was concluded, alliances met. skekTah listened but, really, he didn’t need to. The contenders here were obvious in their greed.

skekSil the Chamberlain.

skekUng the Garthim Master.

skekZok the Ritual-Master.

All three vied for the throne. Nobody would argue this.

skekSil’s motivation was obvious—he was legislatively the next in line for the position. skekUng, naturally, wanted to contend this using his brute strength and aggression. And while the other two battled, skekZok would slink in and watch them destroy each other, taking the scepter in hand to settle matters once the pointless battle was finished.

…Or so skekZok predicted.

skekTah was nervous. skekZok was very confident in his plans. He was relying heavily on the Chamberlain and the Garthim Master simply fighting each other here and now, no rules, nothing but whatever they could lay their hands on. They hated each other enough to do so.

The Schemer looked to his alliance leader. skekZok fingered his staff restlessly, waiting for one of the other two to make a move. skekShod gnawed on a piece of gold and skekOk slunk to the side, edging toward the Chamberlain, as ordered.

The Scroll-Keeper would coax skekSil into moving first. That would trigger the Garthim Master into action. While they tussled, the Ritual-Master would go to the throne and take charge. If need be, skekZok was prepared to banish the two contenders for his own safety.

That made skekTah nervous. skekSil was cunning and skekUng, though physically powerful, was not stupid. The pair would not die easily in the wilds if they were banished.

The Schemer jolted, spotting movement toward the throne. skekSil had taken the bait.

skekUng bellowed, charging him. skekSil turned and hissed, fingers grazing the scepter. skekZok stepped in as referee, ordered both away from the throne. He was soundly ignored by the other two.

“This throne is mine!” skekSil barked, snatching the scepter from the throne. “I am next in line! I am Chamberlain! I am to be Emperor!”

“I challenge!” skekUng snarled.

The chamber fell silent.

There it was, the moment skekZok had been waiting for. The throne challenge. Now it fell down to what trial would be chosen. skekZok was banking on Trial by Air. He could win that soundly, as neither of the other two had the fortitude necessary for it.

skekSil sneered. “Trial by Stone!”

“Trial by Stone?” skekOk squeaked, looking at the Schemer and Treasurer in panic.

“Trial by Stone!” skekUng roared, echoed by the rest of the court.

“This is bad!” skekOk squeaked. “skekZok can’t win that one! That trial is—”

“skekUng’s best event,” skekTah finished darkly.

skekZok set the scepter back atop the throne. skekSil and skekUng circled the room, strutting and showing off while the Slave Master set the Podling slaves to the task of rising the great black stone used in the event. skekTah’s heart was in his throat when the Ritual-Master sided with them.

“What are you going to do?” skekOk choked.

“Wait,” skekZok replied.

“…Wait? You’re going to wait?” skekTah hissed.

“skekUng will win and banish the Chamberlain. I cannot defeat either of them here. I will wait until skekUng slips up. Nobody will challenge him until then,” the taller Skeksis replied.

“…You’re withdrawing!” skekTah accused.

“I am biding my time until the opportunity is better, skekTah. You said it yourself. My plan was not foolproof and skekSil proved that here,” skekZok stated firmly. “I will still protect you. I will still have high influence. skekUng will not discard me yet.”

skekTah stepped back, shocked. He had, foolishly perhaps, depended on the Ritual-Master becoming the Emperor today. skekUng and skekSil both hated the Schemer. They would banish him for past actions if one of them became Emperor. Only with skekZok in power could that have been prevented.

And skekZok had just withdrawn from the throne challenge.

How could he? He knew how much danger the Schemer was in. He’d promised to become Emperor and protect skekTah. How could he do that if another was in power?

Simple—skekZok could not.

The clangs of the curved blades crashing against the stone boomed in his ears. Every Skeksis was watching, howling for victory. skekZok’s alliance instantly split up, picking sides—skekOk chose the Chamberlain while skekZok and skekShod chose the Garthim Master. The noise boomed around the room, an endless echo of verbal warfare.

The noise was so great and the fixation on the trial so strong…that nobody noticed the lowly Schemer abandon the chamber.

There was no point in watching. It did not matter who won. He lost either way. skekZok’s promises had been a sham, a bid to strengthen his alliance by a miniscule amount. Whoever won would not dispose of the Ritual-Master or his alliance due to the necessity of their occupations.

But the Schemer was disposable. An extra. Unwanted. Alone.

skekUng would win, this much skekTah predicted. skekSil was not strong enough to heft the sword and damage the stone to the extent required to become Emperor. He would be banished once the Garthim Master won, for that was how the rules of a trial generally worked.

That meant skekTah needed to get a move on now, if he did not wish to have the Chamberlain slinking around after him beyond the castle.

Because that’s where the Schemer was going—beyond the castle. The castle was no longer safe for him. He would need to venture into the wilds, find somewhere safer. He would miss the Great Conjunction, only days away, and would likely die shortly afterward.

And that was fine. He would die by his own choice. Not because he was banished.

skekTah moved through the castle until he got to the front gates. With a hiss, he ordered the Garthim to open the doors. They did so, the last order they’d likely ever obey from the Schemer. skekTah left the castle and entered the barren lands of Skarith.

It would be a long journey to what was left of the Dark Woods, but he would do it. He had plenty of daylight left. The forest would provide shelter, water, maybe even food. Though faint, he remembered the scattered bits of survival knowledge drilled into him by the Hunter so many hundreds of trine ago.

That would help him survive for at least a few days. Maybe a week. Then he’d fall onto death’s path.

The Schemer started walking. If he’d been listening, perhaps he’d have heard the shrill cry of the Dark Crystal deep within the castle…


	2. The Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally just going to stick with skekTah for this bit, but I decided that poor urTao needed some love. So here you go, urTao!
> 
> skekTah will be back next time, no worries.

It was urSol the Chanter who moved first. urTao did not initially understand why.

urSu the Master had died that morning, in the middle of the storm that perpetually brewed over the distant land of Skarith, visible even from the Valley of the urRu many hundreds of miles away. The wind had blown most of the Planner’s materials around his cave at the time. When the funeral was set up, urTao helped make the borders of the sand circle to keep things neat. Afterward, the young Gelfling child named Jen left on his journey.

It was that thought that gave the old Planner the answer.

A journey. Their journey. It was time to leave.

Nine hundred and ninety nine trine plus one trine had passed since the Great Crystal had cracked and one became two. Now it was finally time to make things right on Thra. It was time to fix their foolhardy mistake at the castle.

One by one, his fellows lifted their heavy, cumbersome frames and began to file into the central area of their valley. Here, urIm the Healer—their new leader—fell into a deep call. The rest of the urRu joined him, sending their song to the Great Crystal hundreds of miles away. Letting it know that they were coming.

It was be a long journey. But they owed it to Thra to make it. The hardships they would suffer along the way would serve as punishment for their inaction back then.

Once the call died, urIm turned and swept away the final sand mural with his tail. “It is time,” he said.

One by one, the urRu trekked up the winding stone path, passing each of their caves in order. Once they reached the top, they slowly walked across the valley on their two heavy legs and their walking sticks.

urTao walked beside urNol. His back had begun hurting and the Herbalist was monitoring him for complications. urTao was grateful for his friend’s kindness. Some part of him hoped that his counterpart bore similar luck.

As the Standing Stones loomed ahead of them, enchanted to repel the Skeksis’ corruption and their creatures of the dark, urTao slowed to a stop.

Something was wrong.

“urTao?” urNol asked, head slowly swinging his way once he realized the Planner was no longer walking beside him.

It took several minutes for the rest to notice and stop accordingly. urSol moved to the Planner, humming. urTao watched his fellows, waiting.

“You…must stay,” the Chanter stated.

“I must,” urTao agreed.

Something felt wrong, being so close to the Standing Stones. Something deep inside of the Planner called out against leaving the valley. Looking at each of his fellows confirmed his suspicions.

He was the only one that felt this. He was the only one who must stay behind.

“Must he?” urNol asked out of concern.

“He must,” urIm confirmed, approaching the Planner. “Your other half…is coming here. You must meet him, urTao. You must be with him, for better…or for worse.”

“Then I will stay. I will meet him,” urTao said.

“The prophecy,” urAc the Scribe recalled. “urTao will miss it.”

“Only if he chooses. We must go,” urIm said, moving back to the head of the march. “Do what you must, urTao.”

There were no more words spoken. Solemn looks were cast his way before, one by one, the rest of the urRu moved past the Standing Stones. They left the valley behind, their journey now beginning.

But urTao’s would be delayed. He had to stay. He had to wait.

The Planner turned and slowly trekked back to the lip of the valley. He lumbered down the smooth stone path, past each of their caves, until he reached the sandy floor of their home. Here he settled to wait.

He had not seen or heard from his counterpart since the division. Few of them had. urTao had known of urVa the Archer encountering his counterpart, the Hunter, many times in the wilderness before their deaths. Master urSu said he’d sometimes see his counterpart, the Skeksis Emperor, in his dreams, though it grew less as the trine went on.

skekTah and urTao had no connection beyond that of their lives. urTao the Planner could roughly guess at the rigors of the Skeksis’ life, based on the scars left etched into the urRu’s skin.

His back was the obvious one. Aside from the scars gained during the division, the vertebrae there had been broken violently five hundred trine ago. Based on the damage, urIm had said it was from a long fall to the ground. urTao was outfitted with a back brace crafted from sturdy branches and taut cloth, wrapped around his chest and midsection by lengths of robe that would never fray. It had taken many long months to regain mobility, even with urNol and urIm constantly caring for his aches and pains. Even now, pain flared up without much warning.

The only other obvious indicator of skekTah’s life was the scars on urTao’s hands. Three long white marks stretching across the backs of his large hands. A fourth smaller scar curved into the space between his thumbs and index fingers, stretching from the backs of his hands to his palms. urTao suspected these to have come from some wild animal, though he could not fathom why skekTah would be fighting one.

The lack of other obvious permanent wounds delighted and concerned urTao. The Skeksis were far more violent that the urRu. Surely they had no qualms about attacking each other, now more so than before with their leader dead.

It made urTao curious if skekTah bore the same unique abilities that he did.

The night vision had proven useful in his youth, when he would help urVa and urNol search for herbs and edible plants in the evening hours. As he’d grown older, slower, and especially once his back had broken, the ability proved to be useless. He had no need to see in the dark, though his frequent bouts of sleeplessness would likely argue, if they could.

Unlike the night vision, the long spines on his tail had never had much use. There was nothing dangerous in the valley. There was no need to fight or kill here. The spines were an unneeded danger to the Planner’s uneventful life. These he covered gratuitously in thick strips of cloth to avoid spiking any of his fellows. So far, it had been rather successful.

Perhaps skekTah had made better use of these unique abilities than urTao did.

He had no way of telling how long it would take his counterpart to arrive at the valley. Hours, perhaps even days. There was a fair bit of distance between the castle and the valley. urTao doubted skekTah would make the journey any other way but on foot.

It made him curious as to why skekTah was coming to the valley at all. What would drive the slippery Skeksis to leave the castle? And so close to the Great Conjunction, too. It made no sense to the Planner.

He could only assume something must have occurred at the castle that resulted in this mysterious journey of skekTah’s.

Then again, maybe it was for the best. They all could see what was coming now.

The Skeksis had probably already caught sight of Jen with their winged creatures. They’d know what was coming. Gelfling had been deemed extinct for the past twenty trine. For one to live now would only mean one thing to the Skeksis—the prophecy was still a threat to them. And once Jen got the crystal shard from Aughra, that threat would become painfully real to the Skeksis.

urTao remembered that day in the field when they first found Jen.

The Gelfling had been but a baby, huddled in the remains of his ruined village. The Garthim had struck. urTao and Master urSu had been close by, searching for herbs and materials for another of urZah the Ritual-Guardian’s rituals. Master urSu had intervened during the attack, relying on the Garthim’s inability to attack him due to his bond with the Emperor of the Skeksis, skekSo. Indeed the Garthim relented and fled, taking every other living creature with them.

Leaving Jen all alone.

When he and Master urSu had returned to the valley with the Gelfling child, it was obvious what Jen’s purpose would be. Jen would complete the prophecy. He would make two into one and heal the crystal. He would save them all, urRu and Skeksis both.

urTao crafted little things for Jen. Toys and structures to play in. He’d only really lent a hand when Jen was young. Once the child got older, urTao withdrew from the effort and cared for the valley, as he’d always done. Jen still came to visit and speak with him, but their conversations were short and more out of obligation than enjoyment. As the trine passed, it became clear that Jen was growing bored of the valley and his slow, massive caretakers.

urTao did not blame Jen for this. Had he been TahTao, he’d have been more interesting to the child, surely.

But he was not. And TahTao would likely never meet Jen for the amount of time required to kindle such a relationship.

Once the crystal was healed and two became one, they would attempt to go home once more. Surely their reunification would permit this. The crystal could not be so cruel as to deny them passage home after everything they had gone through.

Surely it would show them mercy now.

…Please let it show them mercy.

urTao blinked, recalling what he had been doing. He had been waiting for skekTah. The suns had sunk below the horizon, leaving the valley darkened. His night vision painted the world in a dull green shade.

It was lonely here without the others. Without Jen.

urTao hoped his counterpart arrived soon. He did not enjoy being alone in the valley.


	3. The Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to skekTah, guys! Gonna be a bit longer…for reasons… Enjoy!

skekTah did not enjoy sleeping in the forest. He never had.

skekMal had claimed that it got easier the more one did it, but the Schemer begged to differ. He’d slept out in the Dark Woods plenty in his lifetime and he still hated it. It was cold and there were bugs and the weather always took a turn for the worst when he was there. Not to mention all the fizzgigs and other things that lurked in the dark.

Nope, skekTah absolutely hated sleeping in the forest. Nothing would change this, no matter what the Hunter had said.

Night had fallen hours ago and he still had several hours left before the Rose Sun would crest the horizon again. It frustrated him. He could not sleep and he certainly did not enjoy what his night vision showed him—shifting plant life, shadows zipping by, and all the noise ringing in his ears from things he could not see.

He wished skekMal was here. The Hunter always made nights pass quickly in the forest. Or, at the very least, nothing dared to get too close while skekTah tried to sleep.

He briefly wondered where skekSil was. Surely the Chamberlain was here by now. Hopefully he was suffering just as much as skekTah currently was.

The Schemer wondered if anyone in the castle realized he was missing yet.

Was anyone looking for him? Had skekZok sent Crystal Bats to search for him? Did anyone care that he was gone?

Surely not skekUng, the oafish brute. The Garthim Master—excuse me, Emperor—was probably more concerned with the welfare of his stomach than about where the Schemer had gone. There was probably a grand banquet happening. skekAyuk was probably slaving away in the kitchens right now.

…Enough thinking about food. It made skekTah recall how empty his stomach was.

Where there should have been food here, there was none. The forest had grown thick and harsh, life leeching out of it from the crystal veins in the soil. The castle had been sucking up all the life from the planet since skekTek discovered how to get the Great Crystal to do so. Where life had managed to hold on five hundred trine ago, it was gone now, unable to be found. What food was left was inedible by anything that wasn’t a Nebrie or a dirt-muncher.

skekTah suddenly hated the Great Crystal. Hated skekTek. Hated science as a whole for causing this.

How was one to live out here without food?

He imagined briefly that the creatures of the wood fed on anything foolish enough to lay unguarded in their midst.

That made skekTah jolt in panic, scrambling to his feet.

He needed to leave. Preferably now. He couldn’t stay here. There was too much noise, too much movement. He could not hunt for himself in the darkness. Could not hunt period, it had been too long since he last did. He could not survive another hour out here!

But where to go? He did not know where anything beyond the wood was now.

Five hundred trine ago, he had scoured this whole area and beyond with the hunting party. He had known it all. Every valley, every field, everything. Even where safe hunting was and where bad hunting was, both for animals and for Gelfling.

But now? He knew nothing.

The land had changed too much. There were no Gelfling and no Gelfling villages since their complete eradication twenty trine ago. The Podlings, the landstriders, and everything else that lived and breathed on Thra now feared Skeksis. There was no one he could turn to for shelter.

Aughra maybe?

…No, she would never accept him.

Plus he did not remember the way to her high hill. He had only been there once and that had been so long ago that the memory was blurred beyond recognition. He couldn’t even recall why he had gone there now.

The Podlings would flee at the sight of him. Most of their homes were too small to accommodate a Skeksis. Not to mention that those villages bore defense systems now. Even if he did chance across one, he’d likely face armed Podlings or an army of attack fizzgigs. Not pleasant.

He didn’t wish to travel so far east as to hit the mountains. Not yet. Perhaps if he lasted longer than a week, by some Thra-sent miracle, he’d make such a journey. But for now?

Perhaps locating the river and orienting himself would be best. Hopefully he didn’t run into something nasty there.

The problem was where to begin. skekTah had no orientation without the sun brothers to guide him. The moon sisters were only useful if he could see them and the thick canopy of the trees thwarted this. The Schemer was hopelessly lost.

Oh, what would he have done if he were still TahTao?

…Well, for starters, he wouldn’t be in this mess at all. TahTao wouldn’t have run from the castle, from UngIm. TahTao would’ve…

…

TahTao.

Tao.

urTao!

The urRu! He could go to the urRu!

Surely they would not turn him away, not if they valued urTao’s life!

And if skekTah knew urRu—and he was pretty sure he did—they would not turn a blind eye to one of their own if they were threatened.

But how to find the valley?

He only knew about it roughly from multiple attempts to send Garthim and Crystal Bats into the area early into the Garthim Wars when Gelfling refugees would occasionally stray within the boundaries of the Standing Stones. Such attempts ended in failure, of course. The urRu would not allow such tools of darkness and malice into their sacred valley. The bats ceased to send any signals and the Garthim fell apart upon breaching the area past said stones.

…Would such magic repel a Skeksis? Would he be unable to enter the valley if he found it?

He shook such thoughts from his head. Rubbish! Keeping the Garthim out was one thing. A Skeksis? They wouldn’t do that, not with how much value the urRu placed on life. They wouldn’t dare put up threatening measures against a Skeksis.

The valley was somewhere to the southeast, if he was right. As long as he headed for the mountains…but not exactly for the mountains…he’d surely chance across it. It would be an arduous journey but he could make it.

He’d have to. He had no other choice.

.o.o.o.o.

There was fire in the distance.

That much skekTah registered when he saw the vast column of dark smoke rising from the north. It was too far away to be a threat to him, thankfully.

Still, it was a curious sight.

Fire was uncommon on Thra. Most things were lit by the crystal’s glow or by the triple suns. Only Podling villages carried fire nowadays and those were highly contained. For one to get loose, especially at night…

The Schemer forced himself to ignore it. Going north would be pointless. He could not afford to sate his curiosity. Perhaps if he ever journeyed back this way, he would investigate it.

If he lived that long.

He needed to find some sign that would guide him to the urRu’s valley. The sooner he got there, the better off he’d be. They would have food. Perhaps it wouldn’t be to his liking, but food was food.

He’d eat leaves right about now if it filled his stomach and abated his hunger properly.

.o.o.o.o.

He’d been walking for hours on sore feet. The sky was beginning to lighten. The Rose Sun would be up soon. That should help him find his way.

His eyelids drooped. Tiredness gnawed at his bones. He wanted to sleep.

But he could not. The Great Conjunction grew nearer with every passing minute. So too did the possibility of running into the Chamberlain. Or something else unpleasant.

He would not sleep peacefully until he found the valley. That, skekTah decided on immediately.

Funny how he’d yet to see neither hide nor hair of a single crystal bat or Garthim since he’d left. Had skekUng called everything back to the castle to hole up for the Great Conjunction? That sounded like something skekUng would do to cement his new position.

Curiosity still gnawed at the Schemer. Did skekZok care at all that he was gone? Did skekOk miss him?

skekTah kept walking, feet sore and back aching. He regretted not fetching his herb pouch from his chambers. He had nothing to soothe his back pains now and he was much too old to try hunting for the herbs himself. He prayed it would not get much worse than this annoying throb beneath his carapace.

Maybe urTao would have herbs with him? Surely the urRu kept sufficient supplies in order to treat his counterpart’s back.

That only fuelled the Schemer to keep walking in what he hoped was the right direction. With the sun brothers up, he could at last see the mountains. It also helped that he’d left the forest behind in favor of what used to be the Spriton Plains. It was empty of fizzgigs, landstriders, and—of course—Gelfling.

He remembered coming here for the census, once upon a time. The place had been lively and festive. Podlings and Gelfling had been everywhere. It had been a perfectly good community of Thra natives.

All gone now.

The Podlings had retreated to the forests and even as far as the swamps of Sog in order to avoid Garthim raids. The Gelfling were gone, all dead. The landstriders had shifted territories to the east, toward the mountains and rocky plains.

It was much too quiet here. Not even insects chirped. It was frightening to the Skeksis.

skekTah suddenly found himself craving for the usual blabber of the Ornamentalist. The verbal bouts at meals between skekSil and skekUng. The overblown speeches from skekZok on the topic of ritual procedure. Even the choked final words of the now-dead Emperor would be welcome in this empty, soundless plain.

Silence was not peaceful or blissful here. It was torture.

Which was why he did not see fit to complain when he fell upon a flattened path of grass carved into the plain. It headed south at a strange looping angle, as if a procession of miniature mounders had passed through in the night.

Strange…

The path headed from south to east. skekTah did not complain. At least now he would not need to swipe at clumps of grass in order to walk. He could simply take the trail as far as it would go.

He made no notice of the strange drag marks on the ground or the shallow holes near said marks, as if walking sticks had been plunged into the earth…

.o.o.o.o.

The Rose Sun had finally broken out into the open sky when the terrain shifted from a grassy plain to a sparse forest. The grass thinned out and the path became packed earth, flattened by the travels of the creatures that lived here. Footsteps were erased by the drag marks of heavy tails, making identification impossible.

Not that it was needed. The Standing Stones that loomed ahead were all the indication he needed.

skekTah had found the valley at last. Thank Thra.


	4. The Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now for the first and only physical meeting between skekTah and urTao so far in the entire canon of VotSatE. They’ve never met beyond the division and even then, they didn’t actually meet face-to-face. But now it happens.
> 
> This one will be rather long due to the various POV shifts between skekTah and urTao. Hopefully that is not confusing for anyone.

skekTah was here.

urTao did not know how he knew. He just knew that he did.

The night had been long and lonely. The wind howled through the empty caves, swirling around the valley. The moon sisters cast shadows in crazed shapes over him and the sand, some kind of shadow puppet show meant to taunt him. Images of urRu and Skeksis, Gelfling and crystal shards. It was all rather overwhelming to him.

He was glad for the Rose Sun’s light. Glad for the arrival of day. It did little to kill the loneliness but it took the moon sisters’ cruelty from him.

The Planner slowly lifted his head and upper body, using his walking stick to support his weight better. His back cracked and pain sung through his bones. His choice to sleep in the open without his sleep frame had not been a wise one, it would seem.

The fingers of one of his lower arms dug through the herb pouch hooked beneath his saddle blanket, hunting for the familiar bristly leaves of the herbs that urNol had given him for such pains. Finding them, he carefully picked three leaves and chewed them slowly to reduce the bristles and avoid hurting his throat when he swallowed them. The pain would lessen in a few minutes and completely disappear in roughly an hour, he recalled.

urTao paused after swallowing. There was something he was supposed to be doing now. What was it again?

“urTao! Where are you?”

Oh, yes. skekTah was here. That was what he had been doing. Waiting for skekTah to get here.

The urRu slowly moved in a circle to face the winding path up to the valley top. Looming there was skekTah, dressed in his filthy robes, looking quite exhausted. urTao watched him linger there before daring to speak.

“The path down is to your left.”

“I know that, you slow oaf!” skekTah hissed, marching toward the path he clearly claimed to have seen. “Where are your fellows? I doubt they’d leave you alone!”

“They moved on,” urTao replied. “I stayed to wait for you.”

“Wait? For me?” skekTah paused, staring down at the urRu. “You were waiting?”

“Yes,” urTao nodded. “I chose to stay. I had to. There would be no one to meet you here if I left too.”

skekTah seemed to think that over before finishing his march down the path. Reaching the sand, he stalked to the urRu. urTao did not recall how big Skeksis were and was surprised to find them no bigger than he was. skekTah was simply taller while urTao was longer.

Then again, urTao was small for an urRu.

Perhaps skekTah was small for a Skeksis?

“Where are the rest? They wouldn’t leave you,” skekTah insisted, scanning the surrounding valley walls in search of life.

“They left. They will not return this day…or ever again,” urTao said simply, a finger dragging in the sand. “They have gone ahead. Perhaps I will join them soon.”

“Where have they gone?” skekTah demanded harshly.

urTao pondered if skekTah’s snarling and puffing was a result of the darkness in him. Was this the manifestation of all the dark stirrings and negative urges that had plagued him as an urSkek? Was skekTah the amalgamation of all of that, given flesh and blood and a mind of its own, separate from that of urTao’s own physical being?

“I asked you something!”

urTao blinked, pulled from his thoughts. skekTah glared at him, thin hands fisted at his sides. The edges of his beak showed his teeth, sharp and yellow. Deadly.

skekTah was mad at him. Frustrated. Impatient.

“I apologize. I was thinking,” urTao responded.

“Answer my question!” skekTah barked. “Where are the other urRu? They can’t have left you forever. They wouldn’t do that!”

“They did so because it is necessary. Whether I rejoin them depends on you.”

“On me? How?” the Skeksis demanded.

urTao sighed. “How about telling me why you came here? Why are you not in the castle with the rest of the Skeksis? The Great Conjunction is nearly upon us.”

“I’m aware of that,” skekTah hissed through grit fangs. “I’m sure you’re also aware that the Emperor died!”

“Master urSu died yesterday, yes,” urTao confirmed. “urIm succeeded him.”

“And skekUng likely succeeded the Emperor.”

That made the urRu pause. _Likely_ succeeded the Emperor? Did skekTah not know for sure who had taken the Emperor’s place?

“You are uncertain?” urTao asked.

“I left before it was decided. It was between skekUng and skekSil. skekUng is the clear winner, in my opinion,” skekTah said with a huff.

skekSil. SilSol.

The name made urTao’s heart ache fiercely. Memories of their first thousand trine on Thra and the events that led to the division had left his feelings on SilSol mixed. The singer had never caused him harm before and neither had urSol. He considered urSol a dear, if rather distant, friend of his.

From the sounds of it, such a friendship had not carried on in skekTah and skekSil. It sounded very much as if they were not on friendly terms at all.

Did skekTah bear any kind of friends in the castle? Did any of the Skeksis? Or was such a concept too foreign to them, separated from the light and goodness that created the urRu in the division?

“Why did you leave?” urTao persisted curiously.

“skekUng hates me. So does skekSil. I would’ve been banished had either become Emperor,” skekTah replied coldly. “So I chose to banish myself before they could do it. I left before the trial was complete at midday yesterday. I’ve been journeying here since.”

“You wanted to come here?” urTao asked, genuinely surprised at that admission.

“Yes,” skekTah said with a sneer. “The valley has food and medicine. And you would not turn me away if your kind cared for you, which they must. Though it appears that care is gone now.”

urTao resisted the urge to groan. Perhaps he should’ve known better. skekTah had come here to save himself from the wilderness, nothing more.

For a moment, the urRu had foolishly thought that skekTah had sought him out on purpose in search of reunification.

Lesson learned.

.o.o.o.o.

The urRu were actually gone. Every single one. Even their scents were dull, at least a day old now.

skekTah had not thought that the urRu would ever seriously leave the valley. They had firmly stayed here for a thousand trine, rarely venturing past the Standing Stones. It had made isolating them from the Gelfling and Podlings laughably easy.

Now they were gone. And they left urTao, undoubtedly their weakest link, behind in the valley by himself.

If that wasn’t irresponsibility, the Schemer did not know what was.

What baffled him was urTao’s acceptance of it. He accepted that his fellows had abandoned him here, knowing a Skeksis was on the way.

“How did you know I was coming here?” skekTah demanded.

“I felt it,” urTao replied.

“Felt it, huh?” skekTah huffed dismissively. “And the other urRu were okay with this? With me coming here?”

“Why not? They have left to go on the final journey. They no longer need this valley,” urTao said.

Final journey? That sounded ominous. And considering that this was the urRu, that made it doubly suspicious.

“And where are they going?”

“To the Great Crystal,” urTao replied, slowly turning away from him. “It has been nine hundred and ninety-nine trine plus one trine sinc—”

“—since the crystal cracked and we were both born. I’m aware!” skekTah barked, annoyed.

urTao watched him with a frown for several moments before slowly plodding across the sand toward a nearby cave full of scattered stones and wood and various other materials. skekTah snorted before following him. This was obviously the Planner’s work space, though it had seen little use as of late. Sand and dust covered much of urTao’s meager belongings.

“It was on a Great Conjunction.”

skekTah blinked. “What was?”

“Everything,” urTao replied, carefully rearranging a few brightly-colored round stones. “It marks everything that has happened to us since we arrived on Thra. It will mark the end tomorrow.”

The urRu’s slow speech and deep thoughts confused and frustrated skekTah. He could see the connection that urTao was making but it was so abstract that any other being would be guaranteed eternal confusion. The urRu was one big point of confusion.

To think they had once been one scholarly being…

“The end of what?” skekTah asked.

“Everything,” urTao replied. “Or maybe nothing. One cannot be certain. The future changes at its own pace.”

The Schemer hissed bitterly and spun away. “Keep blabbering to yourself! I’m going to raid for food. I’m starving!”

“urAmaj’s kitchen has fruits,” urTao offered.

That was all skekTah needed to hear. So what if it wasn’t meat? He’d eat anything right now.

He marched off to raid the space of skekAyuk’s counterpart. The food was left roughly in the open. Most of it tasted faintly of dust and sand. There were plenty of fruits, vegetables, tubers, and other plants that he did not recognize. Though he’d normally be nervous, he doubted that the urRu would keep poisonous food in the valley. skekTah dug in greedily.

He kept looking over his shoulder, checking on his counterpart. urTao moved about his workspace slowly, as urRu tended to. skekTah wasn’t too concerned.

It was as he crunched through the tough skin of a particularly bitter-tasting fruit that he realized the meaning in urTao’s words. He nearly choked.

“The Great Crystal? The urRu are going to the castle!”

“They are,” urTao confirmed.

“Why?” skekTah demanded, abandoning his feast. Panic swirled in his stomach. “Why now?”

“Because it is time. Time to fix. Time to reverse. Time to forgive,” the Planner replied, moving away from his workspace. “Two will become one, by Gelfling hand or else by none.”

“You old fool! There are no Gelfling!” skekTah barked, panic lessening.

For a moment, he’d been terrified of the prophecy. How silly of him. No Gelfling meant no prophecy. No end to the Skeksis rule.

“There is one,” urTao said, slowly lumbering across the sandy floor of the valley. “Jen, who we rescued twenty trine ago. Jen will heal the crystal. Jen will make two into one. Jen will be Thra’s savior.”

“You lie,” skekTah hissed.

A Gelfling? Alive? Impossible! The Garthim had wiped them all out in the final extermination push twenty trine ago! Not a single one had been seen on the planet since!

…Yet, if one had remained alive, what better hiding spot than in the one place where Skeksis spies could not enter?

“It is not a lie, skekTah,” urTao said. “Jen left one turn of the sun brothers ago. He will have the crystal shard that Aughra bears. He will go to the castle and heal the Great Crystal. We shall be there when it happens. All shall be returned to what it was before we came here.”

skekTah wanted to throw up suddenly. Just the thought of a Gelfling, alive and kicking, made him shrink in on himself. The fear was impossible to hide.

The last time he’d actively encountered Gelfling was after skekLach the Collector had died, when skekNa massacred every single Gelfling slave in the castle on the Emperor’s orders. Twenty trine ago, when Gelfling had been declared extinct, they’d held a grand banquet in celebration. skekTah had been so relieved and happy.

But now, with one still alive? With the prophecy well on its way to being fulfilled? It was enough to make the Schemer feel physically ill.

“Two will be made one, skekTah. It is time for us to leave this world,” urTao said, having approached the Skeksis. “But it cannot be done if we are not there. We must all go together.”

“…Then if I stay here, it will fail! The prophecy will fail!” skekTah cried.

urTao shook his head. “No. You will be left behind. We will be left behind here, alone. They will leave without us.”

skekTah’s heart sank. That thought was just as horrendous as the Gelfling. To be left stranded on Thra, alone with only his urRu…

“It cannot be stopped. Fate has decided this,” urTao said. “The Great Crystal calls to me. It cries from its wound. It seeks to be completed, just as we seek completion. Reunification with its broken piece.”

“But I don’t want to go back,” skekTah croaked, not caring how childish that sounded.

Childish, sure. But it was the truth.

.o.o.o.o.

urTao perhaps should have seen this coming. Of course skekTah would not want to return to being an urSkek. Why would the darkness concede to be smothered by light?

Simple. It would not.

Yet convince skekTah, he must. The Great Conjunction was in one day’s time. It was the only shot they had at reunification, at returning to their home realm. They had suffered much on Thra and Thra had suffered much in turn. It was time to end this cycle of suffering and give Jen his world back.

urTao idly contemplated where Jen could be now. Surely he had reached Aughra and retrieved the crystal shard that she possessed. He would be well equipped to reach the castle before the Great Conjunction.

By now, the Skeksis likely realized their fate. The wheels were turning.

But back to his primary problem. He needed skekTah to come with him.

Though behind, urTao was certain he could navigate them toward the castle in time for the Great Conjunction. He had done much mapping in his younger days with urAc and urSen. urVa’s extensive journeys past the Standing Stones had been immensely useful in these activities. Though he was old now, urTao’s memory was long and he could still recall the way to reach the castle quickly.

All was for naught, however, if his Skeksis counterpart refused to journey with him.

urTao did not relish the thought of being trapped on Thra for another thousand trine, waiting for the next Great Conjunction. Now was the best time to go, before anymore harm could befall them or Thra. The others would be ready to go upon reunification.

Whether TahTao was among them or not.

“They will leave us, skekTah,” urTao said, moving to urNol’s workspace to gather herbs. “We will be alone here for another thousand trine. Alone with Gelfling and Podling and fizzgig of a thousand kinds. We will be unwelcome here for the strife we have caused them.”

“It will fail. skekUng will make sure!” skekTah croaked desperately, tugging at his hair enough to make urTao’s scalp hurt.

“It cannot be stopped. The Great Crystal will become one, as will we all,” urTao said firmly.

“…This cannot be,” skekTah choked, shaking visibly.

“It is time to go home, skekTah,” urTao said gently, packing the rest of his herbs away. He kept a handful for skekTah, back aching in sympathy for his counterpart’s back, and offered it to the miserable creature. “It is time to reunite, to be TahTao once more.”

“It won’t be the same,” skekTah hissed, eyeing the offered herbs critically. He snatched them swiftly and downed some of the leaves, shredding them in his teeth. “So many have died! skekHak and skekVar and—”

“The dead cannot be retrieved, but the living can be spared,” urTao said, derailing that panicked thought process. “Before more death can be dealt…”

His heart ached at the thought of urHom and urMa. So many of his friends had died during the last thousand trine. They would never return, their souls left to wander the open air of this world.

If they indeed returned home through the Great Crystal, would the fallen souls come with them? Would they be set free? Or would they be trapped on Thra, forever punished for their foolhardy actions in indulging their darker desires by watching Thra flourish without Skeksis or urRu or urSkek interference?

It was a horrid thought. urTao banished it from his mind to focus on the present.

“More death will happen if we do not go,” urTao said, slowly moving across the sandy floor toward the stone path. “Thra will not survive to the next Great Conjunction. It will crumble beneath Skeksis rule.”

The stone warmed under his feet as the urRu slowly plodded up the path, passing each cave in turn. Fond memories swirled within him as he walked. Memories of the urRu’s time in the valley. Memories of him and urHom’s friendship. Memories of the short trips he’d taken beyond the Standing Stones with urSen and urVa. Memories of rescuing Jen with Master urSu, who had cared so dearly for them all since the division.

It pained urTao to think of their leader, who had deliberately sickened himself almost a hundred trine ago. It had been the perfect way to destabilize the Skeksis, to rob them of their leader. With Master urSu being the sickness, there would be no cure for the Emperor that urTih’s counterpart could possibly concoct.

Not that said counterpart hadn’t tried, but it was all for naught.

He did not tell skekTah this, however. He feared that the other may react violently toward him for it. That all of this instability and chaos could’ve been avoided had the Skeksis sought a way into the valley to retrieve Master urSu, to fix the problem at its root.

Not that it mattered now, but urTao would keep things as peaceful as he could. TahTao would learn of everything at the moment of reunification. It would be too late to correct things then.

It hurt to be this deceptive, to act so un-urRu like. To act so Skeksis-like. But it was necessary.

“I have to warn them.”

urTao paused. He slowly turned to look at his counterpart, still at the bottom of the valley.

This…was not good.

.o.o.o.o.

“I have to warn them! skekZok! skekUng! Great Thra, even skekSil, if I must!” skekTah hissed.

Panic hit him like a raging rakkida. Fear swamped him, swallowing every sane thought but one. Self-preservation, the defense of his kind, hit the forefront of his thoughts.

It had been one day since the Gelfling had left this valley. Maybe it had been seen…but maybe it had not been. What if it had escaped detection, as it had over the past twenty trine? What if it got to the castle unseen, unimpeded?

If it healed the Dark Crystal before the Great Conjunction—or, heaven forbid, during the Great Conjunction—it would spell the end for them!

Though he did not hold fond feelings for most of the court, he did not relish the thought of knowing that they would all cease to exist. He had the ability to help them survive. He knew of the Gelfling!

He just needed to find a Garthim. No, a crystal bat! That would be even better. He could project the message to skekZok, if no one else!

…Wait, the crystal bats could not convey sound.

A Garthim it would be then. He’d find a Garthim and have it bring him back to the castle. Perhaps skekUng had not ordered the Garthim to ignore skekTah’s orders. Perhaps he had been forgotten about. In that case, he could simply ride the Garthim home.

That would be a rather jarring and probably painful trip. Garthim-riding had been quite a thrilling activity when they were younger, during the Gelfling raids prior to the Garthim Wars. He remembered being introduced to the concept by an eager skekSil, who had done such riding frequently to taunt skekUng. Though skekTah had only ridden a Garthim a handful of times, he had indeed done it.

Perhaps he could do it again, despite his old age.

For all he knew, that’s what skekSil was doing now. Even if ordered to be ignored by the Garthim, skekSil would probably be brave enough to pounce on one anyway. That was probably why skekTah had not seen him since leaving the castle.

Yes, that would need to be it. Hiding in the valley was no longer an option. He had the skills necessary to get home quickly. He had to warn his fellows, if they did not already know, that a Gelfling was coming with the crystal shard. That the prophecy was still a threat. That the urRu were on their way.

It might not convince skekUng to spare him from banishment, but that was not the point. The point was to prevent their own destruction. To kill the Gelfling. To destroy the shard, if at all possible.

skekTah could not sit back and let this happen. All of his friends’ deaths would be in vain if he did. skekVar and skekMal would have died at Gelfling hand for nothing!

His satchel was empty of his usual tools, but he was grateful to still have it. He stuffed some of the fruits and tubers inside. He would not allow himself to starve on his trip home. And thanks to his counterpart’s blind kindness, he now had a handful of herbs for his back. Besides water, he had all that he needed to journey home.

And that path in the grass back in the plain! That had to have been done by the urRu’s march. He could follow that until he could safely divert into the Dark Woods. Then he’d travel through Skarith to the castle and warn the others of the Gelfling.

He’d gotten to the valley through almost constant travel in less than one turn of the sun brothers. Surely he could make the journey back in roughly the same amount of time.

He’d get there maybe an hour or two before the Great Conjunction, by his calculations.

This was doable. He could do this. He had to do this.

For everyone who had died, he could not tolerate failure on his own part now.

.o.o.o.o.

Perhaps it was not the right motivation, but skekTah was indeed willing to leave the valley with him. urTao sighed and continued moving until he reached the lip of the valley. skekTah was following him now, muttering under his breath.

The brother suns were all in the sky now, the Great Sun having finally abandoned its place on the horizon. The world was bright, painting the path of ravaged dirt and crushed grass stems that led through the Standing Stones and out into the wilds of Thra.

urTao would follow this path and hopefully meet up with his fellows nearer to the castle. He did not doubt that skekTah would divert from him at some point to try and save his kind.

Fate would not be changed. skekTah’s efforts would prove fruitless, this urTao knew.


	5. The Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now comes the part I’ve been longing to write for this. Enjoy!

The day had been impossibly long. They traveled far from the valley, reaching the Spriton Plains at midday. Now the sun brothers were sinking beneath the horizon, the sky rapidly becoming dark.

The urRu’s path cut through the southern portion of Spriton Plains, bordering dangerously close to the marshy swamplands of Sog. The ground squished underfoot, the mud threatening to grab at one’s feet and drag them into the mire.

skekTah had never gone into the Swamps of Sog before. He’d never needed to.

He’d heard skekMal tell tales of the place, but even the Hunter was reluctant to enter such treacherous territory. The Drenchmen were among the harder Gelfling to eliminate during the extermination, but skekMal had relished in taking that victory from skekUng’s Garthim. It had been one of the Hunter’s last great exploits before his failed attempt to kill the Gelfling’s queen.

The Schemer did not see the appeal in such a place. Why would any living, intelligent creature seek this disgusting, muddy locale to live? Anything at all could be under all the mud and filthy water. The place was nothing but a giant deathtrap, in his opinion.

Yet there were Podlings here still.

Or so skekTah suspected. They only really spotted the smashed remnants of a village.

Garthim had come through. Recently, even. The ground was churned and the giant seed pod homes were ruined. There wasn’t a Podling to be seen.

urTao did not linger and look. skekTah did not either. There was no point. The Garthim were efficient in their duty. They left no living thing behind.

As urTao moved ahead, skekTah stopped. He could faintly see the thick woods to the west. It was a good distance away, but they were slowly getting there.

That was not all that skekTah saw, however.

A long, clawed footprint was pressed into the mud. skekTah frowned, comparing it with his own. The toes were longer, but it matched. This was a Skeksis footprint.

skekSil.

The Chamberlain had come this far southeast? Had he been trying to follow skekTah and instead chanced across the Garthim on a raid? No doubt skekSil now kept company with them.

That was until the Schemer found another mess of tracks. Small and dainty, two sets at least. skekTah might’ve thought they were Podling footprints…but they were too slender. The sight of two sets made him feel ill.

These were Gelfling tracks. Two sets.

Two Gelfling.

Not one. Two.

And skekSil’s tracks mirrored them. Followed them. West, toward the forest, crossing part of the mire rather than the plain.

skekTah shivered. There were two Gelfling. But how?

One, he could understand. But where had this second one come from? Had it been hiding with these Podlings? They were roughly the same size, so it was possible.

That made his sense of urgency grow. He had to get to the castle. The threat had just doubled.

Worse—if the Chamberlain was involved, there was a good chance that he’d thwarted any possibility of the others knowing about this. He’d want to take the glory for this himself, whether he killed the Gelfling or captured them alive.

skekTah turned and hurried after urTao, who had traveled far ahead along the edge of the plain. He needed to get home quickly.

.o.o.o.o.

The sky was nearly black when urTao paused in his walking. He suddenly left the path, wandering into the thickened forest that formed the borders between the Swamps of Sog, the Dark Wood, and the Spriton Plains. skekTah hissed his complaints before moving after him, not wanting his counterpart to be swallowed by mud in the darkness.

The ground was strangely packed and solid here. The marsh must’ve relinquished its grip on the earth, leaving only a few soggy-looking marsh plants behind. The grass lessened, leaving the trees and forest flora to invade. Vines and ivy crawled along the trees and ground, covering much of the still life.

skekTah’s night vision allowed him to see the stone ruins in the distance, covered by ivy. These were Gelfling ruins. He could tell by the carvings and the architecture, what little had survived the attack that brought it crashing down. If he was right, this was probably some holy place.

urTao entered carefully, aware that his bulk could break the walls and arches that had managed to stand the test of time. The Planner was tracing some of the strange images deeper in the ruins, repeating words aloud. There was ancient writing here, most of it worn away by weather and age.

“What are you doing? We’ll bring this place crashing down on ourselves if we aren’t careful!” skekTah hissed.

“The prophecy,” urTao said.

“What?”

skekTah paused, spotting a magnificent chair further in the room. No, this was a throne of some kind. Dread gnawed at him.

This wasn’t just any holy place…

“When single shines the triple sun…”

skekTah carefully moved toward his counterpart, golden eyes roving over the writing. It was the prophecy, the one the Gelfling had created four hundred trine ago. The one that spurred the Garthim Wars and the extinction—almost extinction, actually—of the Gelfling. The one that promised the deaths of the Skeksis.

There were images here, depicting Skeksis and urRu. Nineteen figures of each. Above them were images of a creature that skekTah had not thought of much since the division.

urSkeks.

“By Gelfling hand or else by none,” urTao finished reciting.

“Why did you come here, urTao? We both know the prophecy and what it entails,” skekTah asked, long fingers stretching out to touch the carved figures of the urSkek.

“You know what this place is. You know what it means. For us, me and you. For the Gelfling. This was theirs and we robbed it of them,” urTao said.

“…No.”

urTao looked at his counterpart. skekTah shook his head solemnly.

“Not we. Me. Us, Skeksis. We took it from them,” skekTah corrected. “You, the urRu…did nothing.”

“And that was our crime. We did nothing,” urTao said slowly.

“And we did everything,” skekTah muttered.

There was a heaviness in his chest now. A kind of longing. He had not thought to imagine the urSkek in many hundreds of trine. He’d thought of TahTao a few times, but imagined him? No, he hadn’t.

He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to go home. He wanted to forget that this was all happening.

“They deserve this back, skekTah. What you—no, what we—have robbed them of. We all caused this,” urTao said.

“We just want to live! Is that wrong?” skekTah cried.

“No…but our way of living…is too destructive,” urTao said.

_“SoSu, you come before us today to preach your evidence of these impurities. I see not how they can benefit, only destroy. You show us the destruction these stirrings have caused. How will letting these control us, as they do other beings, help us? I see no benefit to this. I only see a force of reckoning destruction.”_

“The council said that too,” skekTah croaked, holding his head.

“And they were right,” urTao said, slowly moving toward the exit of the ruins.

skekTah did not move. Words and images tore through his mind. Memories of a time he had long since chosen to forget about.

_“Do not fear! We depart from a world that would see us destroy our very selves in favor of an unmarred, monotonous existence! If our own will not accept us for who we truly are, then we will make a world of our own in another that will accept us! This, I promise you!”_

_“What we had once wanted free…is now draining us of what makes us urSkek.”_

_“I too now believe we may have made an error of judgment. None of us had predicted that the resulting torrent of emotional and verbal baggage inside of us would’ve resulted in so much destruction and violence over such a long period of time. This is not the freedom we had sought out.”_

_“And what I believed was wrong. I have caused harm, the greatest of sins.”_

_“This, I cannot accept as our future.”_

_“We will do what we must, no matter the cost.”_

What hurt the most was that skekTah recognized this voice—Emperor skekSo.

No, it was SoSu the scholar. Their undisputed leader. The one who led them from home.

“Did we…really make a mistake?” skekTah croaked.

But urTao was gone, having left the ruins. The urRu could feel it. It was time to go. Time to separate.

skekTah was left behind in the Gelfling ruins, trapped by a torrent of memories stemming from his urSkek life. Cruel accusations, resent, and regret threatened to crush him. He couldn’t even open his beak to scream.

He suddenly wished someone was here. Anyone at all. Even the Chamberlain would be welcome company, so long as he helped skekTah escape this vortex of pure misery.

At last, the pain ceased. A familiar voice rang in his head, echoed by the sharp tone that had pierced the ears of every Skeksis the moment that the Great Crystal had been cracked.

_“I pray that you will come to see the error of your ways and will one day return to us as whole, pure beings.”_

Then it was gone. The ruins were empty aside from him. No noise, no sights…and no urTao.

skekTah stood there, shivering. His mind was a mangled mess from the violent dump of urSkek memories into his head. His eyes rested on the carvings of tiny bipedal figures.

The Gelfling.

“What am I doing?” he croaked.

He was tired, so drained by the experience. He did not care about the rubble along the ground. Did not care that his counterpart had abandoned him. Did not care how uncomfortable he would be come morning.

He settled on the ground, tail swiping at the stones nearby, and slept. He did not dream.

.o.o.o.o.

The Dark Crystal reflected the image of the battered Schemer curled along the ground, almost hidden among the rubble. It was only the subtle flash of those gaudy diamond-shaped pieces of metal attached to skekTah’s spiked carapace that caught the attention of the crystal bat. If it were not for that, the crystal bat would’ve flown on in its search.

skekZok breathed a sigh of relief at the sight shown to him in the wine-colored facets in the crystal.

He had noticed immediately after the trial that the Schemer was gone. skekTah had not been present when the crystal called out, displaying the image of that horrendous little Gelfling scaling Aughra’s high hill. When dinner came around and the Schemer still failed to appear, the Ritual-Master knew something was terribly wrong.

He had feared the worst initially. After the Chamberlain had been banished, the new Emperor had taken skekNa and skekTek and went about their new political business as the ruling alliance. With skekUng now off-limits as Emperor and skekNa too unruly to deal with, the only one he could safely interrogate was skekTek.

Thankfully, the Scientist swore on all he knew that nobody had seen the Schemer since the throne challenge. It had actually been a point of confusion with skekUng, who had planned to either banish skekTah or viciously corral the smaller into his alliance now that the Gelfling had been seen. The Schemer would be good for coming up with quick defenses should the demonic creature manage to get into the castle.

After forcing the Scientist to hold his tongue about their meeting with some closely-held secrets, skekZok fetched a single crystal bat from his swarm and gave it a specific order. He tended to give one order to the whole swarm, but not this time. While the rest would relentlessly search for the Gelfling, this one would have a unique duty.

skekTah had to be in the wilderness. It was the only place he would go. It was likely fueled by the Ritual-Master’s decision to withdraw from the throne challenge, if skekZok knew the Schemer well enough. He liked to think he knew skekTah very, very well.

Not that skekZok regretted his withdrawal. It had been pointless to participate in the throne challenge at that point. skekUng was guaranteed the win. skekSil practically handed it to him when he picked Trial by Stone. The Chamberlain had gotten too cocky and had, naturally, suffered for it.

While he did not mourn the loss of the Chamberlain—it made picking up the Ornamentalist and the Gourmand easy since neither were inclined to ally with skekUng—losing the Schemer now was a nasty blow.

The entire court knew skekTah had allied with him and that the new Emperor would need to tiptoe around the Ritual-Master to get at the Schemer. This would’ve made skekZok all the more valuable if he willingly consented to hand skekTah over to skekUng in order to defend against the Gelfling. Perhaps it would’ve even guaranteed skekTah’s safety and ensured that his position on the court was stable.

This change of plans made skekZok work a bit, but he would succeed nevertheless.

He would have this crystal bat locate skekTah and guide him back to the castle. Once the Schemer was home, skekZok would reintegrate him into his alliance and explain the situation to him. Unless somehow skekTah already knew of the Gelfling, which would make things easier on the Ritual-Master. Then he would present skekTah to the Emperor, cementing his entire alliance’s safety, and they would await the Great Conjunction and the death of the Gelfling together.

Part one was half complete. The crystal bat had finally found skekTah after over a full day and night of searching. He was in the Gelfling ruins where the prophecy had been birthed four hundred trine ago, a former hiding place for the Gelfling queen prior to her mad escape attempt that resulted in skekMal’s death. The crystal bat would wait there until morning, where it would attract skekTah’s attention and hopefully lead him home.

The image faded from the crystal’s surface. With a sigh, the Ritual-Master turned to leave the chamber.

He froze instantly, meeting gazes with skekShod and skekOk. Both stood only a dozen feet away. How long they had been there, skekZok did not know.

“He’s coming back?” skekOk asked.

skekZok sighed, looking away. “We hope. That is for skekTah to decide on his own.”

“He’ll come back,” skekShod choked out, approaching the crystal. “Has to. He’ll die.”

“That, too, is for skekTah to decide for himself,” the Ritual-Master said. “We must be ready for the Gelfling. If skekTah arrives before then, that is good. If not, then we must be prepared to adapt…without him.”

The trio stood there in silence for a while before leaving the crystal chamber as a unit. None of them noticed the tiny reptilian creature scuttling into a crack in the wall, zipping straight to the dungeons where the Slave Master dwelled.


	6. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it starts to deviate from the movie, guys. Kira didn’t find the shard after Jen threw it…but guess who di~d!
> 
> Longest chapter yet! Get ready for drama and madness from skekTah, guys. Enjoy!
> 
> …skekLa is going to kill me. *braces for impact*

skekTah was sore. His back ached like nothing he had ever felt before. His bones creaked and cracked as he struggled to his feet. Pain sang through every fiber of his being.

He could feel the weakness setting in from not participating in the morning sun ceremony. Even the slightest movement brought pain now. A few steps had him gasping with exertion.

The Schemer feared that he would be unable to return to the castle like this. He could never hope to get back before the Great Conjunction or the Gelfling.

If he failed to warn anyone…and skekSil failed to capture the Gelfling…they would be doomed…

It took far more effort than skekTah had ever had to exert in many hundreds of trine just to get to the archway that he had come in through last night. The suns were barely peeking over the horizon. There was several hours still before the Great Conjunction would commence.

He’d be lucky to get there before then. Very, very lucky.

He lurched sideways, dizzy. He clawed at his satchel until he grasped one of the strange fruits from the urRu’s valley. Taking a large bite, his golden eyes scanned the forest.

urTao was gone. Even his scent had faded. The urRu had actually left him alone in these ruins to fend for himself.

Which meant the urRu, his own counterpart included, had several hours on him in terms of getting to the castle.

Luckily, the urRu were slow.

Unluckily, so was skekTah.

He didn’t understand. After insisting so much on them leaving the valley together, why abandon him here? What was urTao’s motive? Had that…awful experience…been intentional of the urRu? Or had it just been chance and urTao simply abandoned him in fear of his own life?

skekTah crunched through the fruit’s core and downed it, licking the sticky juices from his fingers. His eyes narrowed bitterly.

Regardless of motive, urTao had still abandoned him here. skekTah had no plans to forgive his counterpart for that. If it wasn’t for the consequences he could encounter later, as well as his general dislike of pain, he’d have injured himself in spite to hurt urTao.

But that wouldn’t bring the urRu back. Or help skekTah get to the castle any faster. If anything, such reckless behavior would be counterproductive.

Once he was done cleaning his hands, he shakily lurched away from the stone arch and maneuvered through the rubble. Vines and roots threatened to trip him up, making skekTah’s already unsteady gait even worse. At least there were plenty of stones to help catch his balance before he could topple to the ground.

He needed to go west and get through the Dark Woods as fast as possible. There was no more time to lose. The more he dawdled, the closer the Gelfling and urRu got to the castle.

A sharp glint of something caught his eye. Slowly moving toward it, the Skeksis blinked curiously. It looked like a shard of crystal, transparent and almost dagger-like in shape.

Funny… How did that get here? It looked so out of place in these ancient Gelfling ruins.

skekTah picked it up, shivering. It felt faintly warm. This had not been here terribly long, perhaps a few hours at most. And…was that blood speckled on it? Strange. Perhaps whatever brought it here had been slain.

It wouldn’t shock him if this was the doing of a Podling. Perhaps one from the smashed village he’d passed earlier. After the prophecy had been made, skekTek crafted many duplicates of the original shard in order to confuse the Gelfling in their search for the real shard. With the Gelfling gone, perhaps the Podlings had taken to collecting the fake shards for some unfathomable reason.

skekTah sighed. He could always hope that the Gelfling had a fake shard with it, not the real one. Would Aughra, that greedy old hag, seriously surrender the actual shard to a Gelfling? He honestly hoped she wouldn’t.

He turned the shard over in his hands, watching it catch the dim sunshine. For something fake, it certainly looked as beautiful as he imagined the real shard to be.

No use in leaving it here. Something would eventually come across it and take it. That something may as well be him. He put the shard in his satchel and straightened again.

Suddenly skekTah paused, cocking his head. He had heard movement deeper in the ruins. He turned, eyeing the archway that he’d just passed through several minutes ago.

Did urTao come back?

No, that couldn’t be urTao. His scent was nearly dead. This had to be something else. But what?

There was no time to dawdle…but curiosity always managed to sink its teeth into the Schemer.

skekTah cautiously doubled back through the archway, careful not to bash his head. Sometimes being short was a blessing, though he’d never say it aloud. Any other of his fellows, skekOk excluded, would’ve been unable to get through the archway.

He could hear voices, at least two of them. As he neared the chamber with the throne and the wall carvings, he recognized the snarling of a fizzgig. That made him hesitate. Fizzgigs were not creatures he particularly liked being around, especially if they were wild.

It was the telltale whimper of the Chamberlain that made skekTah freeze in his tracks.

“Hmmmmm.”

Oh Thra, what was skekSil doing here? He couldn’t be here now. Surely he’d have moved on by now! This was still too close to the ruined Podling village where skekTah had first found the Gelfling tracks and skekSil’s own.

If skekSil was here…

“Don’t listen to it, Jen!”

Jen?

Wait! Wasn’t that the name urTao had used? For the Gelfling?

The Gelfling was here?

“Wait! Please, come back!” skekSil suddenly cried.

Footsteps raced across the rubble. skekTah stiffened. They were coming toward him!

Where could he hide? There was nowhere to go but backward! And he wasn’t terribly fast and—

“Jen, this wa—”

A Gelfling with long silver hair raced around the pillar, pulling a Gelfling with dark hair by the hand. With them bounced a fizzgig that was mostly mouth and sharp teeth. All of them flew to a stop when they saw skekTah.

“There’s two!” the dark-haired Gelfling cried.

“Wait! Peace! Please make peace!” skekSil called from the other room, no doubt struggling to get past the archway.

There was nothing to do but back up. There were two of them and, though they were small, skekTah found himself deeply afraid of these Gelfling. Or maybe it was the fizzgig that scared him. He was uncertain. All he knew was that he had no wish to confront them.

If the Gelfling were here, then the urRu were journeying ahead for nothing. Their plan could bear no fruit without the Gelfling and the crystal shard they carried. With the Gelfling still back here, skekTah had a shot at overtaking them to the castle.

He must’ve backed up sufficiently because the silver-haired Gelfling abruptly bolted for an opening in the wall, possibly once a window, a good twenty feet in front of him where he’d previously been standing. skekTah felt relief bloom in his chest when the two Gelfling and their fizzgig fled, disappearing into the surrounding forest. They vanished into the shadows, leaving the Schemer in the strengthening sunbeams of the rising Rose Sun.

He’d survived somehow. He’d encountered both Gelfling…and lived. skekTah had not been killed, as skekSa, skekVar, and skekMal had been. He was alive.

“Hmmmmmm.”

And, unfortunately, so was the Chamberlain.

.o.o.o.o.

skekSil hissed and cursed. He had been so close to luring that Gelfling in!

If only the other one had not been there, he could’ve at least secured the first one’s capture. One Gelfling would be sufficient enough to get him back in the court. skekUng would not be able to deny him readmission for that, surely.

Yet here he stood, empty-handed again.

He still had several hours left before the Great Conjunction. There was still plenty of time to catch one—or maybe even both—of the Gelfling and return to his position in the court before then. Once they were immortal, he’d work on usurping the Garthim Master and taking his rightful place on the throne as Emperor.

The Gelfling would be fleeing west toward the castle. He could get there quickly enough with the Garthim’s help. skekUng, the foolish oaf, had not seen fit to order them to harm him or ignore him. He could safely ride and order one without fear of retaliation. It made getting around the wilds of Thra so much easier.

Thinking of the wilds made him ponder what became of the Schemer.

It was actually in tracking the Schemer that he chanced across the Garthim’s tracks. Without that, he may have passed right by Aughra’s high hill and never encountered that first Gelfling. That tracking had given him so many wonderful opportunities thus far.

Yet he had not crossed the Schemer’s path since. Hadn’t seen hide or hair of the other Skeksis. skekTah was proving to be the most elusive creature on Thra to find.

Not that the Chamberlain was looking for him anymore. skekTah had clearly come out here for a reason. If he wanted to be hard to find, then fine. skekSil would leave him. For all he knew, skekTah was already dead.

Finding the Gelfling and keeping ahead of them was a better plan. Securing at least one would get him back in the court immediately. Securing both would ensure that he, the great Chamberlain, had saved their race from imminent destruction. Nobody would be able to argue against that, not even skekUng.

It may even be enough to get him the throne, should he dare to challenge skekUng again in the future.

skekSil snorted, shaking his head. He glared bitterly at the archway before him. He was much too tall to duck under it, not without ruining his back even more. He’d need to circle around the way he’d come in, through a large missing section of ruins pointed toward the north. He’d go around until he was facing west and proceed after the Gelfling again.

The Garthim weren’t too far off, he recalled. He’d make use of one of them, if need be.

skekSil turned to do just that when a voice attracted his attention. A voice he had not expected to ever hear again.

.o.o.o.o.

“Why were you preaching peace to the Gelfling, Chamberlain?”

The reason was probably obvious. skekSil was among the slipperiest of liars. He could even compete with skekOk now. But skekTah asked anyways.

skekSil, dressed in decaying rags covered in filth, turned slowly to face the Schemer. It was strange to see the vain, opulent Chamberlain in such garb. It was unnatural to see that much exposed skin on a Skeksis. skekTah felt sick just looking at skekSil. He suddenly didn’t regret leaving the castle in self-exile. He’d forgotten how much one lost upon true exile.

“Hmmmm,” skekSil whimpered in that annoying manner of his. “skekTah! You are alive?”

“Somehow, yes,” the Schemer huffed. “So are you, apparently.”

“Yes, somehow,” skekSil nodded, smiling. “You overheard? How much?”

“Bits and pieces,” skekTah replied. “I was leaving the ruins and happened to hear you.”

“You saw the Gelfling?”

“They nearly crashed into me on their way out. There are two!”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware. I’ve been…working on that.”

“Sounds more like you were preaching peace. Were you seriously going to guide them to the castle?” skekTah demanded.

“It was a trick, I tell you!” skekSil pleaded. “I was going to have them captured! Captured and killed!”

“And what if you failed? We’d have two Gelfling loose in the castle! With the shard!” skekTah cried.

“I would not fail! Will not! I will capture them! I will regain my place! I will be the one to save us!” skekSil declared.

“I hear a lot of talk, Chamberlain. I see very little action,” the Schemer hissed.

“You could’ve captured them! Killed them! But you didn’t!” skekSil accused, pointing at him angrily.

“Killed them? You expect _me_ to kill?”

“You expected _me_ to kill!”

“I expected you to do more than lie! You told them how to get in through the Teeth of Shkreesh!” skekTah barked, frustrated.

“And I will be there to capture them!”

“How? How will you get to the castle from here?”

“What do you care, coward? You ran!” skekSil snarled.

“And you forced a trial that you couldn’t win! Who’s the bigger fool here, skekSil?” skekTah challenged, unable to hold back his anger. “You know Trial by Stone is skekUng’s best event and your poorest event. Yet you picked it for the throne challenge!”

“You wanted skekZok to win!”

“Neither of us wanted skekUng to win, yet look what happened!”

“That’s not my fault! I am not to blame!”

skekTah wanted to scream. _Of course_ skekSil denied responsibility for his actions. This was so very typical of the Chamberlain. So very typical of any Skeksis. Take the blame and throw it on anyone but yourself. That was how they functioned.

It suddenly made skekTah sick. Just looking at skekSil made him angry. The sight of those Gelfling, the knowledge that urTao had abandoned him, all those memories of them as urSkek…

_“Is there no place in all of the realms of the crystal where a single being will show me compassion?!”_

skekTah jolted. His head suddenly hurt. Indescribable anger and pain crashed over him.

“Not…again…” he groaned, clutching his head. His vision was growing fuzzy on the edges.

skekSil was still talking, declaring his innocence. If he took any note in the change in skekTah’s demeanor, the Chamberlain did not care.

SilSol. Oh Thra, SilSol, why? Why did he do all of that back then?

It didn’t make sense. It had never made sense to him, not then and not now. SilSol had been such a positive influence for him after they landed on Thra.

It was SilSol who taught him how to sing, though TahTao had only learned a few songs. It was SilSol who’d kept him company on sleepless nights. It was SilSol who cared for him after SoSu had struck him that fateful day over a thousand trine ago, when they all finally realized how wrong they had been about themselves and the dark impulses they had yearned to release.

SilSol had been so kind and strong. And Raunip, that beastly brat, had twisted him.

Or maybe, deep down, SilSol had been twisted from the start and just knew how to hide it. Like how skekSil hid his lies behind a smile.

“Are you listening to me?!” skekSil seized him by the shoulders, shaking him roughly.

skekTah shuddered. His vision must be going crazy. For a second, he thought he’d seen SilSol there rather than skekSil. No matter the face, the expression on it looked identical.

Rage. Hate. Despair.

The things that had been on SilSol’s face back then during the Great Conjunction…

.o.o.o.o.

urTao had made it.

Nonstop traveling through the night had brought him here to the open plains that marked the boundary between the barely-thriving lands of Thra and the dead wastelands of Skarith. Before him, resting in a grassy knoll, were the other urRu.

Many lifted their heads upon noticing him. urTao slowly descended the hill, intent on joining them. His back and feet ached from the constant movement. He needed rest.

Then he stopped. Something was wrong. Several minutes passed before he realized that one of them was missing.

urSol the Chanter.

For one heart-stopping moment, the Planner feared that his friend had perished on the trip. Only once every urRu had faced the far hill behind them did urTao understand. He moved down the hill, slowly lumbered between the resting bulks of his friends, and climbed uphill again.

urSol was perched at the top, a low rumble of a call escaping his mouth. The wind answered back with its own howl, carrying a sharp tone with it. The Great Crystal knew that they were coming. It urged them to hurry, to make it whole so it could make them whole in return.

urTao prayed that they could make the crystal whole. Prayed that it could make them whole. Prayed that it could send them home again.

_“We just want to live! Is that wrong?”_

The Planner shuddered. skekTah’s logic was flawed but direct. urTao struggled to remind himself that this was for the best. Their divided existences were wrong.

He finally reached the top, settling beside urSol. The Chanter finished his call before lowering his great head. The wind tousled urSol and urTao’s long white hair, blowing it freely about.

“You took much time to return,” urSol said.

“skekTah did not need me anymore. I went with him as far as he needed me to,” urTao replied. “He will find his way.”

“As shall we all,” urSol agreed. After a moment, he spoke again. “urAc feared you would not arrive in time.”

“I feared I would not. But I did arrive. Thra guided me here in time,” urTao said.

“And the other?”

“He will catch up. He must,” urTao said firmly.

_“They will leave us, skekTah. We will be alone here for another thousand trine. Alone with Gelfling and Podling and fizzgig of a thousand kinds. We will be unwelcome here for the strife we have caused them.”_

Fear seeded itself deeply in the Planner’s chest.

What if skekTah did not arrive on time? Though Jen would show him mercy, would the Gelfling show his Skeksis counterpart mercy? Would they need to go into hiding just to survive? What if the Great Crystal never sent them home?

“They are fighting.”

urTao blinked before slowly looking at urSol. There was red dying the cloth of the other’s shoulder. It could be nothing but blood.

Pain suddenly flared up in urTao’s arm. He hissed before slowly pulling herbs from his satchel. Pain could be whittled down into nothing. He held leaves out to urSol, who shook his head in refusal before turning back to the rising suns.

“Will we fight?” urTao asked, fear making his tone waver.

He did not want to. He would not. Nothing could make him fight urSol.

“We do not need to,” urSol replied, ignoring the stripes of red dripping down his sleeve. “That is their job. Not ours.”

.o.o.o.o.

skekTah couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t differentiate between reality and the scenes replaying violently in his head. He was drowning in them, drowning in the past. That horrendous day a thousand trine ago. A day that should’ve been good. A day that became the worst ever, somehow even worse than the deaths of his friends.

In his mind, he saw SilSol’s breakdown before the Great Crystal. He could hear SilSol howling, screaming about loss and compassion and—

_His claws tore into ragged cloth, slicing into the sagging gray skin beneath, ignoring the wild clawing of his victim._

He didn’t understand. Not then and not now. SilSol had been his friend. His friend! Why would SilSol declare that nobody cared for him?

_His tail snapped, spines springing into action for the first time in nearly four hundred trine, eliciting a panicked scream from the poor victim caught beneath their much smaller attacker._

Why? Why would SilSol say that? Didn’t he understand that every single one of them cared so deeply for each other? Had Raunip truly hurt SilSol that much with his taunting and jeering?

Suddenly TahTao wished he had killed the tiny ingrate. Ripped him apart. To hell with Aughra! She never reined the brat in! It would be nothing short of retribution.

_Teeth sunk into skin, piercing, tearing, claws cut into a heaving chest, blood spilled, dyeing his hands red, so much red!_

TahTao? Wait, he wasn’t TahTao. He was skekTah.

Right?

He was skekTah, yes?

Not TahTao. skekTah. TahTao was…

_Screams burst forth, blood spattered his beak as his teeth tore into a bony shoulder, missed the throat, missed the kill, angry angry ANGRY ANGRY—_

What was he doing?

SilSol…didn’t exist anymore. Neither did TahTao. It was just skekTah and skekSil and—

skekSil!

It was like someone took a blade to his mind and started cutting around the scene, severing SilSol and TahTao in two. Those pieces began to morph, one into Skeksis, the other into urRu. SilSol—no, it was the urRu he was looking at now, urSol—disappeared with urTao, leaving him and skekSil alone in the darkness.

skekSil was cowering in that darkness. skekTah couldn’t move. He felt heavy, like some great mass was weighing him down. skekSil was shivering, hands over his balding head, eyes wide.

It was hard to choke out words.

“skek…Si…l…?”

“…truly no…”

“skek…Sil…? Wha…?”

skekSil stopped shivering. His hands dropped. He straightened. There was blood spattering his robes. No, the robes were gone. They were just rags, torn and bloodied, the skin beneath torn by claw and tooth. The Chamberlain looked completely mauled!

“Wha…?” skekTah choked.

skekSil shook his head. “There truly is no love for me in all of creation.”

The scene fractured in his mind like glass when skekSil suddenly unleashed a shrill scream.

.o.o.o.o.

skekSil screamed, fighting to throw skekTah off of him. His shoulder and arms and chest burned from the bites and lacerations he’d gained from the Schemer.

The wilds had made skekTah go mad. The shorter Skeksis was completely insane.

And he was impossibly close to killing the Chamberlain.

He had tried pleading. And screaming. And even fighting back a bit himself, however poor an effort it was.

skekTah was small but his claws were sharper, his beak bearing more teeth, and his tail! Good Thra, the Schemer’s tail was bristling with sharp spines. When did skekTah get those? Had he had such a trait from the start? Why had nobody known about it? One could not simply hide such a deadly physical trait for so long!

Yet, from the looks of things, that is exactly what skekTah had done.

The only good thing was that skekTah’s madness made coordinating his tail difficult. It struck the rubble and earth, missing the Chamberlain’s flailing legs, scattering broken spines everywhere.

The Schemer seemed more intent on biting at skekSil’s throat, perhaps trying to tear it out like a wild animal. skekTah had managed to bite both shoulders and even clawed at his chest. Everything hurt. Blood dyed skekSil’s torn under-robes, painting his skin varying shades of brown and black.

He could not hope to overpower the other. skekSil was not well and was rapidly weakening from blood loss. skekTah was powered by what looked like some sort of primeval rage, much like the kind that tended to get the Garthim Master through daily life. The parallel was terrifying, in skekSil’s opinion.

Teeth closed on his throat. skekSil choked down a sob.

This was it. He was going to die here, just like the others had. No power, no glory. Just a brutal death at the hands of one of his own.

_“Is there truly no love for me in all of creation?!”_

skekSil did not recognize the voice in his head, but he found what it said fitting.

There was no love in the Skeksis court. No love on Thra. Or back home, when they were urSkek. Such an emotion never came to him. Nobody had cared. He tried so hard to earn it from those around him but it was never enough!

skekTah’s beak closed, teeth piercing into the thin skin of the Chamberlain’s throat. A few inches would shut his windpipe. A few more would tear clean through every vital artery and vein that kept skekSil alive. A few more would allow a perfect kill, like the kind that wild animals made.

There truly was no love in all of creation for him, was there? Not even from skekTah, who he’d always seen as one who would show mercy to wretches like himself.

skekSil closed his eyes and waiting for the teeth to rip him apart.

The teeth didn’t stay. They released and withdrew after a minute. The weight on him lifted. For a moment, skekSil was certain that he had died.

“skekSil? skeksil? skekSil!”

Funny. He could still hear skekTah, even when he was dead.

.o.o.o.o.

“skekSil! Wake up, skekSil! Wake up!”

skekTah didn’t understand what had happened. Perhaps it should’ve been obvious. He was covered in blood. skekSil was covered in blood and wounds. The Schemer had suffered some type of blackout event.

He must’ve snapped again. That was the only explanation.

And, like he had against the Gelfling after skekVar’s death, he’d caused an insane amount of damage in the few minutes that he’d been out.

“skekSil, wake up! You can’t fall asleep! skekSil!”

This was bad, very bad. skekSil was bleeding so much. He needed to stop these wounds immediately. But with what? Leaves? There was nothing big enough here!

…Robes! His robes! He was still fully robed, unlike the rag-wearing Chamberlain!

Throwing off his hunting cloak—Thra forbid he’d ever shred that for anyone, that was a present from skekMal—skekTah clawed at the thick robes beneath. Thick was good, it would absorb blood better. He peeled off outer layers of robes and pulled the small knife from his satchel, cutting them so that they would better suffice as bandages.

If skekEkt could see him now, he’d probably kill the Schemer on the spot.

Lifting the fainted Chamberlain to lay against him, skekTah peeled away the rags to better see the wounds. He noted with disgust that most were rather deep. Once they got back to the castle, skekTek would be able to fix this quickly enough.

…Once _they_ got back to the castle…

skekTah sighed wearily. This attempt to get back home quickly had just become a joint effort. As much as he’d like it, he couldn’t abandon the Chamberlain here to die. skekSil may not outwardly appreciate the effort later, but this could net him benefits in the future.

Once the Gelfling were dead. Once the prophecy was stopped. Once they were both back in the castle, reinstated on the court, safe and sound, ready to rule Thra unchallenged for eternity.

_“Thra will not survive to the next Great Conjunction. It will crumble beneath Skeksis rule.”_

skekTah shivered.

No, Thra would survive. It’s not like the planet was going to break apart or something. Aughra would be causing an uproar over it if that was true.

…Right?

skekSil’s groan pulled him from his thoughts. skekTah could not afford to let his mind wander. He had to focus on the here and now. There was no other option if he wanted the Chamberlain to stay alive.

“Ngh… skekTah?”

“I’m here, skekSil. You’re okay.”

No, that was a lie. The Chamberlain was not okay. Would he ever be okay again?

“What…happened?”

skekTah swallowed, looking away. Guilt welled in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he croaked. “So much has happened since I left. I found urTao, my counterpart, and he said things. Horrible things. And the Gelfling, they have the crystal shard, they’re going to fulfill the prophecy. And then we came to these ruins and urTao… He did something to my head. I don’t even know if I can explain it. I saw things from before the division—the council, SoSu, you… My memories are a big mess now. I can’t… I think I’m going mad, skekSil. I’m not myself anymore. I’m TahTao…but not TahTao. I’m something stuck between skekTah and TahTao and it hurts, skekSil, it really hurts.”

skekSil just laid there and breathed. Whether he understood anything that skekTah said, the Schemer did not know.

“Look, I’m going to get us both home. I’m not leaving you here,” skekTah promised. “We have to warn skekUng and the others. The urRu, they’re going to the castle. And the Gelfling, urTao said Aughra gave them the shard!”

skekSil coughed weakly, flinching when skekTah tightened more bandages around him. He spat a single word that brought hope to the Schemer.

“Garthim.”

“There are Garthim here? Where?” skekTah asked.

His heart leaped when skekSil gave him the rough location. Once the bandages were secured, skekTah carefully helped the Chamberlain to his feet. Though bitter and hissing, skekSil leaned heavily on skekTah as they carefully exited the ruins.

Neither of them noticed the crystal bat hovering high above, having witnessed the entire scene.

.o.o.o.o.

urTao did not know when exactly he had moved. His arm and shoulders burned from pain. His herb satchel lay abandoned in the grass behind him.

And his two front-most arms were around urSol, supporting the other’s shaking frame. Red and brown dyed his chest and shoulders and arms. The Chanter wheezed in agony.

“I’m sorry,” urTao said.

“You are not to blame,” urSol reassured him. “This…was inevitable.”

“I do not understand. Why?” urTao asked. “Why would you—would SilSol—believe such a thing?”

_“Is there truly no love for me in all of creation?!”_

“I do not know,” urSol replied. “Each of us…had our own darkness to combat. It is rooted deeply into our hearts, our minds. My memories of then are…fuzzy. Perhaps I had adoration…but not what I would define as love…in my life back then.”

“We cared for each other,” urTao stated.

“Apparently, that was not enough,” urSol said solemnly.

Both started when urIm gave a low call. The rest of the urRu slowly joined. urSol and urTao disentangled and joined in the chorus.

It was time to get moving again. There was no more time to rest. The last leg of their journey was beginning.

.o.o.o.o.

“What did it say, skekNa?”

“Give me a second. It’s hard to translate this.”

skekUng snarled impatiently but withheld the urge to strike out at his ally. skekNa had his entire focus on a tiny spy animal, some reptilian vermin that crept in the dungeons. The Slave Master had assigned it to tail skekZok shortly after the new Emperor came to power, to keep track of any suspicious actions performed by skekUng’s remaining rival.

skekTek wrung his hands nervously. The Scientist never enjoyed coming down to the dungeons. He preferred the neat, tidy space of his laboratory. The dungeons were a dusty, filthy, unhygienic mess. Not that skekTek was very hygienic himself, given his hobbies, but skekNa had a way of making even the worst places become worse.

Yet this is where they still met, even now that skekUng was the Emperor.

“Well?” the Emperor demanded.

“skekZok was in the crystal chamber last night. He has a crystal bat following the Schemer,” skekNa reported.

“skekTah? He’s alive?” skekTek asked, shocked.

“He’s far east, near the swamps, but he’s still alive,” the Slave Master nodded. “skekZok’s trying to lure him back to the castle. skekShod and skekOk are in on it.”

“Of course they are!” skekUng growled. He shifted, thinking. “So the Schemer lives. Anything about that whimpering worm, the Chamberlain?”

“Nothing,” skekNa replied.

skekUng huffed. That was fine. Hopefully the Chamberlain had crawled somewhere far away and died. It would make his life infinitely easier.

But the Schemer? Him being alive was good. skekUng could make use of the Schemer, granted he could get his hands on the smaller Skeksis. skekTah was good at traps and such. That was a Skeksis that could defend against the Gelfling, that could help prevent the prophecy from coming true.

“This could explain earlier,” skekTek muttered.

“What are you talking about, Scientist?” skekUng asked, confused.

“Well…” skekTek wrung his hands again. “skekZok cornered me after dinner last night. He kept asking if I knew where skekTah was. I told him I knew nothing and…told him that you wanted him. To get rid of the Gelfling.”

“You told him that?” skekNa hissed.

“He threatened me!” skekTek defended. “But now that we know skekTah is alive and coming our way, skekZok can’t threaten me like that again.”

skekUng bit down a snarl of rage. How dare that slippery Ritual-Master sneak around behind his back and threaten one of his alliance? He was tempted to storm upstairs and banish the other…but with a Gelfling on the way, doing so would be foolish. They needed to be united, if only until the Great Conjunction.

He’d overlook this for the time being, but the Emperor wouldn’t forget it. Once the Great Conjunction had passed, perhaps he’d bring it up. Maybe put the Ritual-Master back in his place, far below the Emperor. That would serve skekZok right.

“They don’t know when he’ll get here,” skekUng said, mind rolling with ideas. “skekZok will want skekTah back under his thumb. But we’ll beat him there! skekTah can only get in through the Teeth of Shkreesh or the main entrance. We will watch those and wait for the Schemer. And when he comes, we will claim him as ours!”

“Yes, yes! Get to him before the Ritual-Master!” skekTek agreed. “skekTah will have to obey you as Emperor now. He will have no choice.”

“And if he resists?” skekNa asked.

“I won’t let him,” skekUng declared. “You said he’s coming back here. It must be because of the Gelfling! skekTah must’ve seen them. He is not one to abandon us when we need him.”

“And if he doesn’t show?” skekNa pressed.

“Then we watch for the Gelfling. They can only get in through those entrances too. We will catch one or the other, regardless!” skekUng barked.

“He’s rather far away. Perhaps sending Garthim out to fetch him would help,” skekTek suggested.

“Yes,” skekUng nodded. “The Garthim will escort him. Once he is here, he will help us kill the Gelfling. And after the Great Conjunction, we will see where his loyalties truly lay.”

skekNa chuckled darkly. He’d never really liked the Schemer, though it had been the other that showed the Slave Master how useful animals could be for spying. Though seeing skekTah suffer was enjoyable, the thought of him being dead wasn’t as pleasant suddenly.

skekTah had dealt with Gelfling before, back when skekVar died. Nobody else knew what happened that horrid day, but skekNa had seen the blood and smelled the death on the Schemer when he came in with the General’s remains. He’d gone outside after the funeral and seen the carnage. He had no clue how skekTah had done it, but he knew it couldn’t have been the General’s doing. He had no proof except what he could deduce by sight.

skekTah had massacred. He’d killed many Gelfling that day. He could do it again now with these last two.

The sharp skittering of claws pulled the Slave Master from his thoughts. Another spy animal scampered from a crack in the wall, chittering for his attention. skekNa gestured for it to speak, mind churning through translations as it chirped. He hissed in alarm at what he heard.

“skekNa, what’s wrong?” the Scientist asked.

“skekZok’s crystal bat sent back another transmission. My spy only caught the tail end of it, but skekTah is coming. He and the Chamberlain are riding the Garthim from the swamps into the Dark Woods right now. skekZok suspected that they should be here in two hours.”

“They are riding my Garthim?!” skekUng demanded, eyes bulging with rage.

The Emperor remembered such events occurring not long after he’d made the creatures. skekSil had come up with the idea and implemented it many times to harass him. Others had taken to the thrilling task of riding a Garthim but none did it as much as the Chamberlain had. skekUng could not count the number of times he’d been in the field directing his Garthim and suddenly skekSil would ride by on one, causing such a ruckus. It was a relief when they had all grown too old for such activities and his Garthim could function without distraction.

Yet here it was again. skekSil riding on his Garthim, this time returning from exile with skekTah. How dare he?

“Why is the Chamberlain with him?” skekTek asked, more concerned about that. “skekSil and skekTah hate each other.”

“No clue,” skekNa replied, waving the spy away. “Hopefully they haven’t decided to ally with one another out there. That could cause problems.”

skekUng shuddered. That would absolutely cause problems. It was bad enough that skekSil was coming. The fact that he was accompanied by skekTah made him all the more concerned. This plan to control skekTah would be for nothing if skekSil had already done the task himself in the wilds.

“They will come in through the front entrance! They must!” skekUng said, shaking in barely-restrained anger. “You two! You have to distract skekZok and his allies! Do not let them near the entrance! Keep them away from windows! They must not know that skekTah has returned until I have him under my rule!”

“Of course!” skekTek nodded. “I can deal with the Treasurer. Perhaps the Scroll-Keeper too.”

“That leaves me with skekZok,” skekNa snorted in annoyance. “I’ll keep him busy. Maybe mess up his precious choir chamber. That’ll keep him away for a while.”

“Do whatever you must! Just keep them away!” skekUng ordered. “I’ll contact you once I have skekTah.”

“And what of the Chamberlain?” skekTek dared to asked.

skekUng snorted, turning away. “I’ll deal with him. He’s still banished. That cannot be argued.”

The alliance quickly parted to attend to their tasks. skekTek hobbled to the Chamber of Life, preparing a faulty medical excuse to draw the Scroll-Keeper and Treasurer to him. skekNa headed upstairs to the ritualistic chambers that skekZok held control of, happy enough to be causing mischief and grief.

Emperor skekUng headed for the throne room. There was still time before skekTah and skekSil arrived. He could wait.

It would be with impatience…but he could wait.


	7. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good luck surviving, skekTah. Your journey will only get harder from here. Poor baby…

skekTah’s joints ached from the jolting and jarring of the Garthim’s movement. He felt so very vulnerable, sprawled atop the wicker cage hooked to the Garthim’s back. At least skekSil was comfortable, locked safely away inside of said cage.

The castle loomed ahead of them, dark and sinister against the rapidly brightening sky. All three suns had broken free of the horizon and were crossing the sky, making their way toward that critical point that would bring about the third Great Conjunction. It was as if the Schemer was racing them to that point.

But skekTah was no longer afraid of losing. The castle grew larger and larger. He was going to be there with plenty of time left. The Gelfling couldn’t be here just yet. He had to have beaten them.

There were Garthim already at the entrance, swarming something. skekTah did not care what they were doing. He hissed and pointed out the entrance to the Garthim carrying them. The wicker cage creaked as skekSil moved suddenly, a whimper escaping him.

The Garthim stopped, lowering itself and the cage it carried to the ground. The front gates were flung wide open to welcome them. skekTah clambered down the cage and opened it, helping the wounded Chamberlain out. The Garthim collected its cage and scuttled off, probably to return to the Garthim pit beneath the castle.

skekTah helped his fellow inside, the gates closing heavily behind them. The entry chamber was empty, barren of all life. The Schemer frowned, calculating the quickest way to the Chamber of Life. The sooner he dropped skekSil off, the sooner he could find skekUng—or even better, skekZok—and warn them of the incoming danger.

skekSil abruptly pulled out of the Schemer’s grasp, shaking but holding his ground. “You may continue on alone, Schemer.”

“skekSil, you need help. You’re hurt,” skekTah argued.

The Chamberlain puffed, hissing when the Schemer reached out to him. skekSil stepped back, safely out of skekTah’s range. “I shall see skekTek on my own time. I have something…important…to attend to.”

“More important than your health?” skekTah challenged.

“Hmmmmm,” skekSil whimpered, bobbing his head. “I’ll only be gone a bit. I shall catch up to you.”

skekTah wanted to argue against this. This whole thing sounded bad, but the Chamberlain was determined. skekSil turned and slunk from the entry chamber, disappearing down a narrow corridor. skekTah could not fathom what could possibly be more important than the Chamberlain’s own health, but he had no options. Though he was early, time was still racing by. He needed to hurry lest the Gelfling turn up.

He abandoned the entry chamber, lumbering through halls and up staircases until he hit what roughly amounted to a main chamber. Grand banquets and celebrations had once been held here, long ago when times were better for the Skeksis. Now it was just another empty chamber, forgotten over time by those that did not care enough to remember.

Now, if he was the new Emperor, he’d probably be upstairs in the thro—

“skekTah! There you are!”

The Schemer jumped, whirling around in shock. From the darkness of another corridor came the Garthim Master. No, the Emperor. The new Emperor.

“skekUng? Why are yo—”

“I’ve been waiting for you! I knew you’d come back eventually!” skekUng declared.

“skekUng, there are Gelfling! Two of them!” skekTah choked, struggling not to trip over his words. “They have the shard! The one from the prophecy! Aughra, she gave it to them! They’re coming here to heal the crystal! And the urRu, they are coming too!”

“I know! We’ve seen the Gelfling through the crystal!” skekUng confirmed. “But the shard? The urRu? You know this as truth?”

“I was with the urRu! My counterpart confirmed their journey. The valley was empty when I got there!”

“You went to the valley?” skekUng asked, shocked.

“Yes! Where else would I go?”

“And the Chamberlain? Where is he? We saw him with you too,” skekUng demanded, drawing closer to the Schemer.

That gave skekTah pause. He could understand seeing the Gelfling. skekZok clearly would’ve sent his crystal bats out once they were spotted. But seeing the Chamberlain? That meant the two missing Skeksis had been tracked too. Why?

“He’s…gone. Wandered off somewhere when we came in,” skekTah replied, picking his words carefully. “How did yo—”

“Pah! He’ll be found soon enough,” the Emperor snorted, waving a hand is dismissal. “But you!”

The Schemer stepped back, suddenly wary. skekUng’s body language was all wrong. It had been since he’s found the Schemer. It was menacing but there was something else, something hidden. The last time skekUng hid something was 250 trine ago, when skekLach…

Would he be banished now? He didn’t like that calculating look on skekUng’s face. It was…dangerous.

Perhaps leaving was best. skekZok would provide better company and a more understanding ear to all this danger.

“The Gelfling are on their way. They must be stopped. You!” skekUng declared. “You can stop them, Schemer. skekNa said you could. You did before.”

“Wh-what? Stop them? How?” skekTah choked, suddenly confused.

“You killed Gelfling before. Kill them now,” skekUng barked.

“K-kill them? They’re not even here yet! And I’m not fit to kill!” skekTah argued, shaking violently. “What did skekNa tell you? Those are lies, all of them!”

That was so long ago! Why was that being brought up now? Yes, he had killed Gelfling…but only after they had killed skekVar! It had been self-defense and only that one time. That didn’t warrant putting him in charge of killing anything else! What was skekUng thinking?

Self-preservation. The Emperor was throwing the extra to them, that’s what was going on. The Schemer was a good distraction, a delay for the Gelfling. Whether it was his traps or himself, skekUng was prepared to sacrifice him to save the rest of them.

skekTah was disgusted. He turned, decision made. He was going to find skekZok. skekZok wouldn’t sink to such lows!

“The Gelfling must be dealt with, skekTah, and you will help me!” skekUng ordered, snaring his arm to prevent the smaller Skeksis from walking away. “I am the Emperor and you must obey me now! You are mine!”

skekTah froze. For a second, his vision must’ve messed up. Another Skeksis was standing in front of him, a sneer on its beak, a single eye watching him. Then it was gone, skekUng standing proudly in its place.

“W… What?” skekTah choked, beginning to shake. Oh Thra, was that…?

“You heard me, Schemer. You are mine!” skekUng declared firmly, seizing skekTah’s shoulder now and shaking him once. “You belong to me now, Schemer. You. Are. Mine! Not skekZok’s! Mine!”

_“You are mine!”_

Those words boomed in his ears. They ricocheted in his mind, cracking things as they bounced—past memories that had been locked away to save him from reliving that misery. His vision stuttered again and skekUng was gone, replaced by the Collector. skekTah was back several hundred trine to the tail end of the Garthim Wars, days after skekVar died, when…

_“Nobody wants you anymore, skekTah. But I do. I’ll take you in, put you back together. I can make you function again, just like you used to. All you have to do is be mine. I take good care of my things, yes?”_

skekTah shuddered violently. He didn’t see skekUng shaking him. It was skekLach shaking him, cackling in his ears. Triumph, victory, shining like mirth in that single dark eye.

“You will help me in this, skekTah?” skekLach—funny, he sounded like skekUng—asked.

It was phrased that way but it was no question. It was an order. There would be no refusals here. They would not be accepted. That was just how skekLach had always spoken back then, giving the illusion of choice where there truly was none.

skekTah trembled. skekVar was gone. Dead, dead, dead. And nobody cared. This was to be expected. Why would anyone care?

“Schemer?”

skekTah nodded, shaking. He’d help skekLach. There was nothing left. He had nobody now. All he could do was get swept in the current, like always. skekLach was strong. He’d protect him, just like old times. skekLach had always protected him back when they were drifters and even during the census. He’s never hurt him…right?

“Good! I told skekNa you would listen!”

Wait, skekNa? But…skekNa and skekLach hated each other. They never really spoke before. Why would they…?

skekTah blinked and the image of the Collector was gone. Standing before him, clearly proud of his newest victory, was skekUng. The Schemer made a small noise of confusion and fought to put his memories together.

Did something just happen here? Wasn’t he with skekLach? skekVar had just died and the Schemer had slaughtered Gelfling and been at the funeral and…

…No, skekLach was dead. He’d been dead for quite a while now. 250 trine, actually. How could skekTah have forgotten that?

He really must be going mad. He couldn’t even focus on reality anymore.

“We shall reinstate you immediately!” skekUng declared, clapping him on the shoulder before turning away, releasing the other Skeksis. “Then we prepare for the Gelfling! They cannot be allowed to reach the crystal! Our rule will be absolute!”

skekTah shook, unable to move. His beak parted but no words came out. He could not speak. He could only blankly stare as the Emperor marched from the chamber, shouting for everyone to gather in the throne room.

What had he just done?

.o.o.o.o.

He had not been in this chamber in just over two days. To think so little time had passed, yet everything had changed so rapidly.

The entire court was gathered in the throne room. skekTah shuddered, feeling self-conscious. Every set of eyes was on him. Perhaps the strongest set came from skekZok, who regarded him with concern and…fear?

Funny, that made no sense. skekZok was nothing but confidence. Why was he scared? Had something happened while skekTah was away? Did the Emperor do something to make the Ritual-Master so uncharacteristically unnerved like this? Or was it the Schemer’s sudden return that caused it?

Maybe skekZok regretted bowing out of the throne challenge. Regretted betraying skekTah, placing him in such a dangerous position back then. It was a stretch, but skekTah could certainly hope that the Ritual-Master regretted doing that to him.

There was no sign of the Chamberlain. Hopefully he was in the Chamber of Life now, recovering from whatever medical treatment skekTek had applied to him for the wounds that skekTah inflicted on him. Perhaps the Schemer would inquire about it later. Maybe.

Actually, he probably wouldn’t. skekSil may use that to bring up the origin of the injuries, if he hadn’t already done so. But nobody was glaring at him, so skekTah could only assume that skekSil had yet to bring up the event.

“skekTah the Schemer!” skekUng cried, drawing all attention to himself. “He has returned with information about the danger coming our way! He has agreed to help me destroy the Gelfling!”

“Help you? skekTah is no warrior!” skekZok challenged, stepping forward.

“skekTah is _mine_ now, Ritual-Master. Not _yours_!” skekUng barked, rising from his throne.

The Schemer shook when he felt that blue gaze land on him. Confusion, betrayal, and anger stabbed into his back. Betraying the Ritual-Master was never a clean affair. Those that dared never came back out quite intact, at least mentally.

skekTah wanted to apologize, to explain how messed up he currently was. Maybe somehow, skekZok would understand. Maybe he could even help the Schemer. skekZok was good at things like this. He had to be. He had always helped in the past!

Maybe skekzok would have a clue of what exactly happened in the ruins. What urTao did to skekTah. All these urSkek memories, all these vision anomalies… Maybe he could help alleviate, if not relieve them, until the Great Conjunction. Surely that would fix whatever was wrong with him!

But skekTah said nothing. He couldn’t afford to, not without looking like he’d gone insane in front of the entire court. skekZok backed down with deep reluctance, stern gaze still on the cowering Schemer, and did not speak again during the reinstatement.

“Now that skekTah has returned, we shall sta—”

skekUng’s speech was interrupted by a set of loud shrieks.

A quick scan of the crowd told skekTah that the Chamberlain was not the only one absent. skekEkt and skekAyuk were also gone. Strange, how had he not noticed. The duo certainly stuck out in a crowd, what with skekAyuk’s messy garb and skekEkt’s vibrant colors. Though, from the sounds of it, they were both rapidly approaching the throne room now. And not in the happiest of spirits, according to the pitch of the Ornamentalist’s screams.

“Gelfling!” skekEkt screamed as he raced in, skekAyuk waddling after him. “Gelfling! In the castle!”

“Such an ugly creature!” skekAyuk wheezed.

skekUng rose to demand an explanation, only for the words to die on his tongue. A familiar whimper filled the chamber. The Ornamentalist and the Gourmand scrambled away from the chamber entrance to make away for the withered, bloodied form of the Chamberlain.

Trapped in his talons, struggling with all its pathetic might, was the silver-haired Gelfling from the ruins.

skekTah gasped, heart stopping. Every Skeksis drew back as the Chamberlain stepped into the throne room, pushing the captured Gelfling ahead of him. skekTah stepped aside, gaze meeting skekSil’s. There was triumph in the Chamberlain’s eyes.

The Teeth of Shkreesh! skekSil must’ve gone there to ambush the Gelfling! How could he have not realized that was the Chamberlain’s intent?

…But where was the other one?

“I bring you…the Gelfling,” skekSil offered, focused on the Emperor. He turned dramatically to the crowd, no doubt sucking up all the attention he could from the court. “I tracked it! I captured it! I was injured! But I have ended the threat!”

skekTah couldn’t speak but his brain stayed on the same thought. Where was the other one? There were _two_ Gelfling. skekSil only had _one_. Where was the other one?

“We must kill it!” skekZok declared, drawing his sacrificial knife. “Before it gets loose and destroys us! The law itself, decreed by the fallen Emperor skekSo, demands it be so!”

“No! It’s mine!” skekSil hissed, clutching the Gelfling close in response. “I decide what happens to it! And I choose not to give it to you, spithead!”

“How dare you!” the Ritual-Master bellowed in rage. “It must be killed! You cannot be advocating for its survival, skekSil!”

skekTah jumped, hearing skekTek’s hissing voice far too close for comfort. The Scientist and the Emperor were speaking softly behind him, but he could hear every word.

“You can drain it of its essence, sire. One last dose before the Great Conjunction!”

“Drain it… Yes, drain it.” skekUng rose, drawing all attention to himself again. “We will drain the Gelfling, then kill it!”

skekSil whimpered, still clutching the struggling Gelfling. The Emperor snorted before speaking again.

“Reinstate the Chamberlain! As a reward for bringing forth the Gelfling threat, he shall regain his place among us!”

skekTek limped forward, snatching the Gelfling with one hand. The court began to cheer, taunting the Gelfling as it was dragged away. skekTah watched the tiny thing as it thrashed, trying to escape the bony hold. Though the Scientist was old, he had enough strength to restrain one Gelfling by himself, even crippled as he was. A perk of being far larger than his victim.

skekTah shuddered, fingers digging into the robes at his chest. His heart constricted, almost painfully. He didn’t understand why? Surely he couldn’t…feel bad for the Gelfling?

This was necessary. This was the law. The Gelfling could not be allowed to live.

skekSil gave a triumphant whimper as skekEkt approached with his robes. skekZok snarled, glaring after the Scientist before refocusing on the reinstatement of the Chamberlain. Softly, the Ornamentalist inquired about the blood on skekSil’s rags and skin. With a flourish, skekSil quietly spoke of a devastating battle beneath the castle against the Gelfling.

There was no mention of the Schemer. The mad attack that skekTah had engaged in. Whether in defense or not, skekSil held his tongue about the Schemer’s bout of insanity in the ruins.

skekTah was grateful for this…and also afraid.

At skekEkt’s prompting, the whispering turned into a story. Every Skeksis was drawn in, even the Emperor. skekSil’s dramatic flair kicked up the events to unrealistic proportions but nobody questioned him. The story of a battle between a Skeksis and the Gelfling, the lives of the former all on the line, was too enrapturing to escape from.

Nobody noticed skekTah slip away from the crowd, just like during the throne challenge. He did not need to hear this. It was mostly lies, anyway. He had a bigger, infinitely more important task to perform.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Surely somebody else had to have noticed. There were two Gelfling, not one. Where was the other one?

skekTah slowly made his way back to the entry chamber. Once there, he moved down the corridor that skekSil had gone when they entered the castle. He followed the Chamberlain’s scent, descending into the dank depths of the castle. If not for his night vision, the journey would’ve been impossible to make in his current state of age.

It was cold and wet in the tunnels. Everything was slippery, making the walk treacherous, but skekTah persisted. His curiosity demanded answers. He needed to know what happened to the other Gelfling.

Dust made him cough. Rubble was up ahead. A portion of the ceiling must’ve caved in here. skekTah frowned, glaring at the supports across the ceiling.

Funny, they didn’t look rotted. It looked more like the beam had been…torn down?

A loud snarl made the Schemer yelp, stumbling backward. A ball of brown fur, mostly mouth and sharp teeth, hopped out from among the rubble. A fizzgig! It barked viciously, flashing its many teeth. skekTah retreated further down the tunnel, not wanting to be bitten.

The fizzgig did not chase him. It whined, turning to nudge a stick from among the stones.

…Wait, that wasn’t a stick. It was a limb.

Realization dawned on skekTah—the other Gelfling was under all that rubble.

Was it dead? Hurt? Unconscious? It certainly wasn’t moving. He smelled blood, so it was injured.

He also smelled the Chamberlain’s blood, which decorated the floor of the tunnel. skekSil must’ve torn the support beam down to crush this Gelfling…and captured the other one in the ensuing panic.

This one must be dead then. There was no way that it was still alive.

Right?

.o.o.o.o.

Across Skarith, the urRu rose as a unit and began to call. Their song raced across the barren earth to the castle, homing in on the Great Crystal that loomed in the distance. The crystal cried out in response, urging them to move faster. To make it whole.

But deep in the castle depths, something else heard the call. And it called back too.

.o.o.o.o.

A high-pitched whine pierced his ears. skekTah yelped, hands over his ears in response. It was such a loud sound. He glared briefly at the fizzgig, only to see that the creature had gone still. It was not whimpering. It was completely silent.

Then the sound dampened to a gentle ringing. Funny, it sounded familiar…

Warmth against his hip made him look down at his satchel. Bright light was pouring from it. skekTah carefully opened the bag and reached inside. His fingers closed around something long and smooth. He drew it out and stared.

It was the crystal shard that he’d found in the ruins. It was glowing brightly, radiance synching with the gentle ringing that he was hearing.

It was like a kinder version of the song that the Great Crystal now made…

skekTah stared at the shard, horror suddenly stabbing into him. He wanted to fling the shard away. Why, oh why, had he ever picked the accursed thing up back there?

To think that he had been carrying around their destruction this whole time!

His shard was the true shard. The one that would heal the Great Crystal. The one that would destroy them all.


	8. The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here comes the rapid fall, folks. Hope you’re enjoying the ride.

Why? Why, out of all the crystal shards in the world, did he have to somehow pick up the real one? What were the chances of that?

skekTah trembled, one hand at his head, the other still clutching the glowing shard. The shard that the Gelfling should’ve had. The shard that was death in tangible form to him, to his kind.

Why didn’t the Gelfling have this? Had they lost it in the ruins?

Of course, he’d _had_ to pick it up. Bring it home in time for the Gelfling to arrive to kill them. Perfect timing.

skekTah was so wrapped up in his self-loathing thoughts that he didn’t realize that the fizzgig had drawn close, whimpering. When he did, he yelped and scrambled back from the overgrown furball. The creature whined, pawing the ground before bouncing back to the rubble.

The Schemer shook, watching it. His golden eyes drifted over the fallen stones that covered the Gelfling. There had been no movement in the past several minutes from it.

It must be dead. It absolutely had to be dead. There was no way it had survived.

And if the Chamberlain had caused this—and he no doubt did—there was a chance that skekSil may come back down here for the body. Dead or alive, a Gelfling was a prized trophy. The Chamberlain would not let such a thing go to waste, rotting beneath the castle.

Unless skekSil had brought it up after the Schemer had left, nobody seemed to make note of the fact that only one Gelfling’s fate was addressed.

skekTah could use this.

skekSil knew of his rampage episode. skekTah knew about the other Gelfling’s location. Dangerous secret for dangerous secret.

He couldn’t leave it here. If skekSil acquired this one, he’d hold all the cards. That was not good. And since he technically belonged to skekUng’s alliance now, that made the Chamberlain an even worse enemy. No, keeping this Gelfling from the Chamberlain would likely be in skekTah’s best interests.

Unfortunately, this required…touching…the dead Gelfling.

This would not be fun.

But first, he had to get the fizzgig out of the way. He didn’t want to be bitten while moving all that rubble.

Surprisingly, the fizzgig skittered away easily. Whether it was genuinely afraid of him or not, it no longer was snarling or barking at him. It rolled off across the stones and hunkered near another set of support beams. It whimpered and whined, pawing the ground, but did not draw near.

skekTah was relieved at this. He could work without fear…hopefully. Now to get the rubble out of the way. He prayed his back did not present too much of an issue.

Most of the stones weren’t very large or heavy, thank Thra. They rolled away easily. With every stone moved, more of the Gelfling was revealed. skekTah found himself relieved to recognize it as the dark-haired one from the ruins. Deep down, he had been afraid that there may have been more than two running around the castle.

Now that he could see it, he recalled just how small and weak Gelfling were. It was almost mind boggling how dangerous they had become during the Garthim Wars. All because of a prophecy and a few weapons.

The Schemer sighed, shuddering. Even dead, the Gelfling looked so strange. No claws or beak and spines. Just unblemished skin with no natural defenses. He saw no wings, so this one must be male. Unless skekSil ripped the wings off. That made skekTah shiver, imagining losing his minor arms. It was the closest equation he could make for such amputation.

He’d leave those identifications to skekTek. Maybe. If he ever delivered this Gelfling to the Scientist.

Really, he had no clue what exactly he was going to do with this Gelfling. Keep it from skekSil, yes…but what else? He had no interest in a Gelfling body. skekEkt and skekAyuk would probably want parts of it. skekTek would enjoy dissecting it, perhaps even attempt to draw essence from it post-mortem. skekTah had absolutely no desire or use for a Gelfling corpse.

He didn’t even want to touch it! He wasn’t much of a fan of picking up dead things. He hadn’t had to do that since he’d last hunted with skekMal so long ago…

That made his heart sink. He’d been thinking of the dead quite a lot suddenly. It made him sad. They should all be here for this Great Conjunction. They should all be moving on together.

“skekTah?”

The Schemer jolted, whipping around. His beak dropped. Standing at the mouth of the tunnel was a Skeksis that had been long dead.

“skekVar?” skekTah choked.

“What are you doing here?” the General asked, cautiously making his way toward the Schemer.

“I was…uncovering the Gelfling.”

“What Gelfling?”

“This one. Huh?”

skekTah looked down and gasped. The rubble pile was gone, along with the Gelfling. A quick check told him that the fizzgig was gone too. Panic burst in his chest.

“Oh Thra, it’s gone! skekVar, the Gelfling is gone!” he babbled.

“What Gelfling? skekTah, settle down,” skekVar urged, grasping the smaller Skeksis’ hands.

“The Gelfling, they got into the castle! skekSil has one and I found the other. It must not be dead. The prophecy, skekVar, we have to—”

“TahTao, settle down. What are you talking about? Everything is fine,” skekVar said gently.

“No, it’s not!” skekTah shouted, looking around in panic. “We have to…?”

The rocky walls of the tunnel were gone. He and skekVar were standing in the middle of a round room of white and gold. It was so bright and beautiful. Pillars rose up on the edges of the room, offering a tantalizing view of the clear sky outside. They were high up, perhaps in a tower or something.

“skekVar, where are we?” he asked.

“skekVar? TahTao, what has gotten into you?”

“What?”

skekTah looked away from the pillars and the sky, jolting when he saw a golden being before him. He yelped, tearing away from it and curling in on himself. They were not alone. Other golden beings in ornate robes drifted from the light around them. skekTah cowered, a broken sob escaping him.

“TahTao, what’s the matter?” skekVar—no, VarMa, it was VarMa—asked in concern.

“He looks frightened. TahTao, speak to us. What has happened to you?” LachSen questioned.

“TahTao?” HakHom said gently. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

TahTao. Why did they keep calling him that? He was not TahTao, he was skekTah. Skeksis, not urSkek. Why were they—

skekTah opened his eyes and gasped when he saw the hands he was attempting to hide his face behind. They were long and spidery with slender fingers. No sign of scars either. Most jarring of all…they were golden.

He wasn’t a Skeksis. Not skekTah. He really was TahTao.

“TahTao?” HakHom asked again, offering a hand. “Are you okay?”

TahTao carefully straightened, unable to figure out what had happened. He could’ve sworn he’d been under the Crystal Castle, about to pick up a Gelfling corpse to hide it from a fellow Skeksis. Had it all been a dream? All of it? Because…this was not Thra…

This was home. His home. The urSkek realm.

“TahTao?”

“Where am I?” TahTao hesitantly asked.

“The Divinity Tower. You collapsed,” HakHom replied. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“SoSu… Where is SoSu?” TahTao asked.

“I’m right here,” the ancient scholar said, drifting forward. “Are you okay? You scared us.”

SoSu was here. Then at least some of it had happened. He hadn’t known any of these urSkek before visiting SoSu’s speech that day.

Then…had he glimpsed the future?

A hand was on his head. “No bumps. He should be fine.”

MalVa. Oh gods, it was MalVa. Now that TahTao looked around, he realized those present were everyone he’d lost in that dream. They were all here, safe and sound. Alive.

“What’s gotten into you, TahTao?” SaSan asked. “You keep looking around. Did you see something?”

“Maybe he had a nightmare while he was out,” LiLii suggested with a giggle.

“Must’ve been a really fast nightmare or a really short one then,” MalVa huffed, drifting back to give TahTao space. “Either way, he’s back up now. Whatever he saw, it can’t get him.”

“I think I…saw the future? I don’t know,” TahTao choked. “Where’s ZokZah? Maybe he can discern it for me.”

“He’s not here,” SoSu replied. “It’s just us.”

“Then TekTih.”

“Also not here,” ValMa said.

“...Where are they?” TahTao asked, dread striking him.

Nobody that had lived in his dream was here. They were gone. Absent. Now that he listened, he couldn’t hear anything but the voices of his friends. Resting a hand on his chest, he shivered. He couldn’t feel or hear his own heartbeat.

What was going on here?

“They’re not here yet. Maybe they’ll never arrive,” SoSu said, drifting to the pillars. “There’s no use shouting for them, TahTao. They won’t come or respond.”

TahTao trembled. The rest drifted away, mirroring SoSu in position. Eight urSkek placed in position, equally spaced from one another around the room. It made TahTao nervous. Afraid.

He carefully approached SoSu. “Where am I? Where is everyone?”

“It’s just us,” SoSu replied, tone suddenly cold. “You aren’t supposed to be here either.”

TahTao shook. The world suddenly wasn’t as bright. Darkness dripped in, spattering their pure golden robes. The sky darkened, clouds rolling together to form a deep gray. It almost resembled the Crystal Castle as it was in his dream.

“Where am I?” TahTao demanded.

“Some kind of twisted limbo, a mockery of our home. This is where we ended up when we died,” SoSu replied harshly. “This is where we’ll all go. This is the prison we crafted for ourselves when we broke the Great Crystal. This is our eternal punishment.”

“Then why am I here? I’m not dead!” TahTao cried.

“You’re dying inside. You all are!” SoSu shouted, rounding on him. “We here are dead inside and out! The rest of you are set to join us! The Gelfling will not let you live! You are all destined to end up here, trapped like we are!”

TahTao fell back as SoSu stormed toward him, expression furious. The golden room fell away, becoming the glittering balcony of the Crystal Castle. SoSu’s staff was suddenly in his hands. Thra was beautiful, green and luscious and alive beyond the angry urSkek.

The balcony where he’d been struck. TahTao shuddered and shrunk in on himself, eyes wide as the staff was raised. He curled and awaited his punishment.

“SoSu, stop! This is not why we called him here!”

“Get out of my way, you blasted traitor!”

LachSen had placed himself in front of the youth, arms outstretched to defend TahTao. SoSu howled, staff still raised, yet he hesitated. Doubt flickered in his eyes.

“That was only half of me, SoSu,” LachSen urged. “You know I would never hurt you like that. We were all different after the division. Do not use that to judge us here.”

“Get out of the way!” SoSu snarled.

The resounding crack of the staff as it struck LachSen in the face made TahTao shriek. It wasn’t LachSen on the ground anymore. It was skekLach, skekSo looming over him to deliver another deadly blow. This was the Collector’s punishment for violating Skeksis etiquette, for—

“TahTao, stop! That was me, not LachSen!”

MalVa was in front of him, only his face was bleeding from a twisted scar on his beak. Wait, urSkek didn’t have beaks. He was a Skeksis, skekMal the Hunter. TahTao shook and saw his own scarred hands. He was skekTah again, a broken and bleeding Skeksis.

“You have to keep your memories straight, TahTao,” skekMal urged, grasping his shoulders tightly. “This place, it seeks to torment us using our memories. It twists them to turn us on each other. That is our punishment for dabbling in the darkness. You have to remember the truth!”

“Why? Why are we all here?” skekTah choked, fingers wet from the blood coating his scarred hands. “Why has the crystal done this to us?”

“Because we forgot our light,” skekMal—no, he was MalVa again—replied. “Our purity. The things that made us urSkek. We’d forsaken them in search of what we thought was truth. When we realized our error, we foolishly pursued another supposed truth in the belief that we’d return to our original urSkek beliefs. We’ve followed a chain of false truths from the start, beginning with SoSu and ending with—”

“Me,” TahTao whispered.

The scene crumbled. They were back in the golden room. The blood and scars were missing. LachSen rose, rubbing the spot where SoSu’s nonexistent staff had struck. Their leader withdrew, robe fading from gold to grey, as if it were reflecting his emotional state.

“We all have our demons to fight,” GraGoh said, moving to support their shaken leader. “None of us are exempt. Even those not here yet have their demons. They will face those when they arrive.”

“I don’t want us to end up here,” TahTao choked, carefully rising.

“Our home exiled us. Thra tried to help us and we ruined it. The Great Crystal chose to forsake us for our foolishness,” LiLii said, wringing his hands. “What other fate do we deserve? We destroyed most of the life on Thra. Our home will never take us back. None of those alive remember light and…we remembered it…far too late...”

“No one will fight back against what we’ve become,” HakHom admitted. “But…TahTao, that is why we called you. You unintentionally set such a possibility in motion. The Gelfling ruins started it.”

“He won’t understand it, HakHom! Enough!” SoSu snarled.

“Let him try, SoSu! Not all of us have given up,” GraGoh barked. “Not all of us are content with drowning here for eternity, punishing ourselves for things we couldn’t have known.”

“The ruins? You mean…?” TahTao choked. His head was beginning to ache. “urTao, did he…?”

“He set this in motion. So you could find us. So you could save what’s left,” SaSan said, smiling. “We may be gone…but if one of you can find the light and fix our mistakes, it can all be undone. We can all go—”

“Home,” TahTao whispered.

His workspace. His desk at the grand library. The ones he’d called friends. His colleagues. His peaceful life. Perhaps it wasn’t the happiest, but it had been his. He couldn’t get it back completely on Thra before the division, despite his best efforts to adjust. It was torn from him completely after the division.

When his light vanished. When he became a creature of pure darkness. When he became…

Skeksis.

“We can go home?” TahTao choked, shaking with an emotion he couldn’t categorize. It felt warm. “How? How can we go home?”

“The Gelfling. The prophecy,” HakHom replied. “Let the Gelfling heal the crystal.”

“But that will kill us!” TahTao shouted.

“No, not kill,” HakHom reassured him. “It will pull you and your urRu together. It will kill the Skeksis and the urRu…by returning them both to a singular urSkek.”

“You mean I…” TahTao looked down on himself, gold and pure. “I’ll go back to this.”

“Yes,” VarMa said. “And we’ll be set free. We’ll all be able to go back home. You finding the light should make up for SilSol losing his light back then.”

SilSol. Oh gods, VarMa was right. It had failed back then because Raunip had provoked SilSol. Maybe they had not been pure light…but SilSol had become pure darkness and ruined the whole ritual.

Now it would be the reverse. The others were pure darkness…and TahTao would be the light.

“What if I can’t do it?” TahTao asked. “What if I fail? urTao said Thra wouldn’t survive if we stayed in power!”

“All you have to do is help the Gelfling get the shard to the Great Crystal. Make sure they heal it. That will be enough. You and the Gelfling will be the light,” LachSen explained.

“But…skekTek has the other Gelfling,” TahTao recalled. “And the one I found, it’s dead.”

“Are you sure?” SoSu grumbled. “Are you sure it’s dead, TahTao?”

“I… I think it is,” TahTao said, suddenly uncertain.

There was a weird ringing in his ears now. No, it almost sounded like…barking? Strange.

The world was getting blurry. TahTao stumbled. Wait, stumbled? Floating beings can’t stumble, right?

“Goodbye, TahTao,” HakHom said. “Goodbye.”

“W-wait, I… I…” He didn’t want to say goodbye. He’d only just found them.

The barking silenced as the world became black. Dust coated his tongue and nostrils. He sneezed before cracking open his eyes. His ears were ringing again. The rocky, dark tunnel of the catacombs surrounded him.

As did the sharp sound of somebody screaming.


	9. The Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter due to lots of Skeksis-Skeksis interactions. And Skeksis-Gelfling interactions. And skekTah internal self-monologue. skekTah interacts with lots of things here, guys.

He was back. From where, he wasn’t sure. Had it been a dream? A hallucination? skekTah was unsure.

Maybe he’d snapped again. Maybe he’d really gone mad.

Or maybe it was all real.

But that didn’t matter right now. His back hurt and his ears rang and he was somehow on the ground and somebody was screaming—

“Kira!”

The Schemer jolted, eyes snapping open. The pain in his back vanished beneath a thick torrent of fear. The rubble before him was shoved away. Struggling to free itself among the remaining rocks was…the Gelfling.

“Kira! Fight them!” it shouted, trying to wriggle free from its rocky prison.

Oh Thra, it _was_ alive! SoSu had been right!

But how? The rubble should’ve killed it. It hadn’t moved earlier. It should be dead. It shouldn’t be awake and fighting and yelling.

…Yelling at what?

Another scream reached his ears. It sounded like nothing he’d heard recently. Yet he somehow already knew what it was.

Gelfling. The other one. The one that skekTek had.

The one that skekTek was probably draining in the Chamber of Life right this very moment.

“Fight them, Kira!” the Gelfling before him shouted, kicking one leg free of the rubble.

The fizzgig bounded by, pawing at lesser stones. It paid no attention to the fallen Skeksis. It whined and dug, fur raised. From fear, perhaps? Or anxiety?

skekTah did not know. He didn’t study fizzgigs or really care for them. That was skekTek’s specialty, at least before he started dissecting them. skekTah was more afraid of the creatures than anything.

skekTah slowly began to rise, unnoticed by the struggling Gelfling or the fizzgig helping it. His back flared with pain. skekTah was tempted to rationalize how he’d fallen and not awoken instantly but decided such a thing was futile to do. Better to accept what had happened and focus on getting up unharmed.

His back brace creaked, perhaps from damage taken in the fall. skekTah was afraid. If his back brace was broken, he risked breaking his back again. This time, maybe even his spine…

Other screams burst around them, echoes racing down from the Chamber of Life. Probably bouncing down the shaft to the lake of fire, rebounding through the rock as vibration and reaching them down in the catacombs beneath the castle. Or something like that. Such explanations of acoustics were also not the Schemer’s forte.

The screams began to die as the Gelfling finally freed itself from the rubble. It was wounded, blood seeping through a makeshift bandage around its arm. skekTah pondered if skekSil had caused the wound before dismissing the thought. He didn’t know and, really, he didn’t care.

As the Gelfling slowly staggered to its feet, skekTah stepped back. Fear curled in his heart. This was death incarnate for him. This tiny, twiggy thing had the capacity to kill him and all he knew and—

_“Let the Gelfling heal the crystal.”_

HakHom’s voice echoed in his mind, stilling his retreating steps. He was frozen, staring at this tiny creature as it carefully shook off. The fizzgig sniffed, turning to face him. It knew he was there.

Heal the crystal? That would doom the Skeksis. Doom him. Everything he’d done up until now will have been for naught. It would all be reset to the start.

…No, not reset. They would become urSkek. TahTao. Blackened and misguided, but not cruel. Not evil. Not…darkness…

_“You and the Gelfling will be the light.”_

skekTah shuddered, images of that horrendous limbo tearing across his mind. SoSu said that was where they were destined to end up. Their memories were twisted, the truth warped until it was unrecognizable. The worst kind of hell, he imagined.

He didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to live like that for eternity. He didn’t want any of them to go through that.

_“And we’ll be set free. We’ll all be able to go back home.”_

skekTah shook. His fingers grasped something warm in his hand. He jumped before looking down at what he held. He was shocked that he hadn’t dropped it when he’d fallen to the ground.

The crystal shard. The thing that would destroy him. Destroy them all.

The thing that would save them.

But at what cost? How would the others view him? Would they thank him? Hate him? What if the Great Crystal refused to let them leave? He didn’t want to spend another thousand trine on Thra!

…He wanted to go home…

urTao, the old fool! He’d known. He’d been helping skekTah this whole time, whether he’d initially realized it or not. Waiting for skekTah in the valley, guiding him to the ruins, even abandoning him there! It had to have all been planned.

No wonder urTao was called the Planner.

Another scream broke skekTah from his thoughts. He jerked his head up, as if somehow thinking that would let him see into the Chamber of Life high above them. Useless. All he saw was stone. But that scream…

“skekTek,” he choked.

It was gone now, cut off suddenly. skekTah felt terror grip him. Why had it sounded so close? Did the Gelfling…?

“Skeksis!”

skekTah jolted, head snapping down. Oh Thra, he’d forgotten that there was a Gelfling in front of him! It saw him now and raised its thin arms up threateningly.

“N-no! Wait! I’m not the Chamberlain!” skekTah croaked, hands up in surrender as he desperately tried to differentiate himself from the Gelfling’s obvious attacker. “I didn’t hurt you, I swear! I was…”

How was he supposed to tell this creature that he’d been unburying it? That, technically, he’d been helping it get out from under all that rubble? The Gelfling would never believe him! It certainly hadn’t believed skekSil.

The Gelfling bared its teeth…and then paused. skekTah yelped when the fizzgig bounced forward, whining. It pawed at his robes, toothy jaws parting in a small yap. The Skeksis froze, praying to every accursed deity and relic that skekZok had ever spoke of in his rituals that this fizzgig would _go away_.

“Fizzgig! What are you doing? Get away from it!” the Gelfling cried.

“Yes, please get away!” skekTah pleaded.

The fizzgig—apparently named Fizzgig—turned and whined at the Gelfling. It nosed the Schemer’s robes one last time before bouncing back to the Gelfling. skekTah made certain to back up a step, keeping track of the fizzgig should it make another go at him.

“Wait! You’re the one from the ruins!” the Gelfling suddenly said.

“Yes, that was me! The other one you saw. Not the Chamberlain. I never hurt or intentionally got near you. I let you flee,” skekTah pleaded. He pointedly did not mention that such action had been done out of fear.

“Where is Kira? Your friend took her!”

“We’re not friends. The Chamberlain doesn’t like me much,” skekTah corrected. “And your friend is with the Scientist in the Chamber of Life. It’s probably been…”

He wasn’t sure if he dared admit to it being drained. That might cause this Gelfling to attack him.

“Where?” the Gelfling demanded.

“I…” _I can’t,_ part of him said. _You must,_ said another.

“Where?” the Gelfling shouted, stomping its foot.

skekTah swallowed his pride. He hoped it was his fears too.

_“All you have to do is help the Gelfling get the shard to the Great Crystal. Make sure they heal it. That will be enough.”_

“It’s probably dead,” he croaked.

The crystal shard felt hot in his hand. He lifted it shakily. The shard rattled against his bony fingers. The Gelfling’s eyes widened in shock.

“Where did you get that?”

“The ruins. You have to…heal the crystal.” Oh Thra, why was his voice fighting his brain? His tongue wasn’t forming the words he wanted. _Go home. Run away. Leave us alone, please._ “This shard is yours. Take it.”

The shard glowed, a gentle ringing now echoing from it. The Gelfling shook before warily stepping close. The fizzgig yapped in encouragement. With a final step, the Gelfling snatched the shard from skekTah’s talons.

The Skeksis withdrew his hand. His palm felt as if it had been burned. He stepped away quickly, fear swamping him. Just what in Thra’s name had he done?

 _You made your choice. You wanted to go home. You chose the Gelfling over your own kind,_ a voice hissed in his mind.

“Go. Find the crystal and heal it. Stop this nightmare. Please,” skekTah croaked, turning away.

He wasn’t afraid to turn his back on the Gelfling now. He’d just done something infinitely worse. He’d betrayed his own kind, betrayed the whole court. If the Gelfling killed him, at least it would keep his treachery a secret.

But the Gelfling did not kill him. It did not chase him. skekTah left the tunnel junction behind him unimpeded. He almost wished he hadn’t.

He’d done what was needed. There was no point in staying beneath the castle anymore.

He’d dealt with one Gelfling. Now he would see to the other. If it was dead, then so be it. But if it lived…

And skekTek. That scream, so close when it should not have been. He needed to see to that.

Some deep part of him felt concern for the Scientist despite their rocky relationship over the last few hundred trine. Ever since skekLach died, skekTah and the Scientist had separated. One of the last things done for the Schemer was the addition of a latch that allowed skekTah to remove his back brace by himself. One final parting gift in the wake of the abuses suffered beneath and because of the Collector.

Since then, they had stayed roughly out of one another’s way. skekTah even had to gather a band of Podling slaves to fetch his herbs himself after that, though bundles would turn up mysteriously at his door if he ran out of his own supply for too long. He never had the courage to confront the Scientist about this, though.

While certainly not friends, they’d had a close doctor-patient bond for several hundred trine since his back had broken. skekTek had gone out on limbs for him before. It was only fair that skekTah be prepared to do the same.

He just prayed that he was not too late.

.o.o.o.o.

The Chamber of Life was in chaos. Animals wreaked havoc among instruments and tools, unattended and free of their cages. Notes and pages lay scattered about the floor, work tables flipped over. At the center of this wild mess sat a cackling figure that skekTah thought he’d never see again.

Aughra.

“Back so soon? Too late, you buzzard!” the old crone cackled. “Gelfling gone now! Off to destroy you!”

“Where is skekTek?” skekTah choked, desperately scanning the room for the other.

“Gone! Down to the lake of fire! Got what he deserved!” Aughra replied harshly.

skekTah’s heart froze when he saw the open portal. Most of the tools and machines used for draining creatures was twisted and broken, as if something big had bashed them all aside in its journey through the open shaft. The Schemer slowly shuffled toward the opening, animals and fizzgigs scurrying out of his path.

Some part of him wanted to look down. Another told him not to. It’s not like there would be any evidence down there. The lava would’ve eaten everything.

Like it did to urYa…

“He’s dead? How?” the Schemer choked, suddenly finding it rather hard to breathe.

“Gelfling called to the animals. Set them all free. They took revenge on him for their torment,” Aughra replied, slowly rising from her place on the floor with a grunt. “Gelfling off to heal crystal. You can’t stop it.”

skekTah frowned. His chest ached. Everything hurt now, even worse than before.

skekTek was dead.

“Why you here? Why not go screaming to other Skeksis? Tell them of the Gelfling, of your doom! Why stand here?” Aughra demanded.

“…I don’t know,” skekTah croaked, reaching up to grasp his hair. “I don’t know…what I want. I just…want this all…to stop.”

“Stop? Can’t stop now! The prophecy must be fulfilled! You know this!” Aughra barked. “Why you here?”

“I just told you, I don’t know! I just…”

A broken sob escaped him. skekTah felt himself crumpling against the portal, eyes burning. His back ached from the movement but the Schemer no longer cared. He felt hurt and cold and empty inside now.

skekTek was dead. Gone. Never coming back. Ever.

He’d just lost somebody else. Just when he thought the death was over, it returned. First the Emperor. Now skekTek. Surely Thra must be punishing him. That was the only explanation.

“I want us all to go home. To be safe. Together,” he said softly, feeling the tears stream down his sunken cheeks.

But there was no together. Not anymore. Over half of their number was dead now. Even after all this time, all this pain and suffering, more of them were still dying. There was to be no immortality for them.

skekTek was probably in that hellish limbo now, trapped like the rest, his memories warping and twisting. The Schemer mourned the Scientist and wept. Strangely enough, it felt good to do.

When was the last time he’d ever cried? skekTah did not know. There had been no time to mourn the previous Emperor. Perhaps this had been a long time coming.

He didn’t immediately register the gnarled hand at his back. When he did, he didn’t bother to swipe at the old woman. There was no point. Aughra did whatever she wanted, no matter the risk. If she wished to comfort him for whatever crazed reason she had, he wouldn’t be able to stop her.

“Why you here, TahTao?” she asked.

She knew him. Recognized him in this warped state. How?

“You know you can’t stop this. Long time coming, it’s been. You all wanted to go home back then. Why fight it?”

“I don’t know…but I’m sick of fighting,” skekTah said, scrubbing his eyes. “I…had a dream. A vision? I saw those that died. They were trapped in some kind of limbo. They said that…that we could only go home if we let the Gelfling heal the crystal. I… I gave the Gelfling the shard, Aughra.”

“Why?”

skekTah choked, voice cracking. “Because I want us all to be together. To go home, like we should’ve back then.”

Aughra hummed. “Dead can’t come back. They around us still, but they can’t come back. Gone.”

“Then it was a pointless endeavor. I’m just making the rest of us suffer,” skekTah muttered, feeling his withered heart breaking. “They’ll never forgive me. None of them will. I’ve just doomed us all.”

Perhaps he could jump through the portal. Die in the lake of fire, as skekTek and urYa did. It would be fast and relatively painless. Nobody but Aughra and the Gelfling would know about his betrayal. He’d probably end up in that twisted limbo…but did he really _want_ to go home without everyone?

At least he’d be with his friends then. Tortured, certainly, but he’d be with those he knew. Those that understood and even encouraged such betrayal from him. He’d never be lonely again. That was okay, right?

“Can’t stay here. Have to go. See what you did,” Aughra urged. “Up, get up!”

“What’s the point? I can’t get what I want now,” skekTah replied, glaring at her.

“Never get what you want. Impossible. Nobody does! You put something in motion. Now you see it through to end!” Aughra barked, shoving him up from the floor. “Gelfling go heal crystal. You be there! Vision happened for a reason.”

“What’s the point?” skekTah demanded, rounding on her. “My friends are _dead_! skekTek is _dead_! The Emperor is _dead_! I have _nothing left_ for you!”

Aughra watched him with her lone eye. “You have you. All you need. No one take that from you.”

skekTah just stared slack-jawed at her. How did any of that make sense?

Aughra pushed him toward the door. “Go now. Have to see what you caused. Must finish what you start.”

“Why?”

“Who finish what you start? No one but you!”

“What does that even mean?” skekTah demanded.

“Vision say you help Gelfling. How you help if you sit here and cry?” Aughra exclaimed. “Help by going. Seeing. Being there. Go to crystal and help! You want to go home? Then help to do that! For those that can’t now!”

skekTah paused. _Those that can’t…_

He frowned, teeth bared. _Those that can’t._

He didn’t say anything else to Aughra. There was no need. He marched out of the Chamber of Life, leaving its chaos and death behind. He glanced around the nearby corridors but saw no sign of where the second Gelfling could’ve gone.

But he’d know where it’d go now. Where both Gelfling would inevitably go.

The crystal chamber. The Dark Crystal. No, to the Great Crystal. To heal it.

skekTah left the empty hall behind and tried to not think of skekTek. He didn’t get to fight it long. He nearly crashed headlong into skekUng, skekNa hissing a warning upon spotting the smaller Skeksis. skekTah backed up, instantly on alert.

“There you are! Where have you been?” skekUng demanded.

He couldn’t tell the Emperor the truth. None of it would make sense. And admitting to his treachery would be grounds for banishment. Not that it would help matters. It was too late for banishment. Too late for much of anything.

The Great Conjunction was less than an hour away. There was no time for anything but the ritual now.

“Well?” skekUng snarled.

“skekTek is dead.”

He said it so softly but the effect was instant. Both Skeksis fell silent, watching him with sudden rapt attention. It was foreign, strange. They never really paid attention to him before now. It was frightening. skekTah composed himself and forged ahead. It was all he could do. For skekTek, if nothing else.

“skekTek is dead. The Gelfling he had taken from the Chamberlain has escaped. I was just there. The lab is in ruins and the animals are loose. Aughra was far too happy to tell me everything,” he said.

“The essence?” skekUng asked.

“There was none. It’s safe to assume that skekTek failed to procure any before his death,” skekTah replied, disgusted deep down that that was apparently all the Emperor cared for. “That or the Gelfling took it when it escaped.”

“The Gelfling are loose!” skekUng cried. “The prophecy!”

So the other one’s existence was known now. skekTah wondered if the Chamberlain had fessed up or if it had been seen. He chose to play ignorance. He was good at that.

“There’s more than one here?” He feigned shock, letting horror color his features.

“Chamberlain said there were two,” skekNa growled. “But the other one wasn’t where he said it was. He said it was dead!”

So skekSil had gone to retrieve the first one. It must’ve been shortly after skekTah had left the catacombs since he hadn’t run into them. The seeds of panic had been sown. Now to await the harvest.

“Then we have two loose in the castle,” skekTah said. “They’ll have the shard. They’ll go for the crystal.”

“Garthim! To the crystal chamber!” skekUng bellowed, wheeling away to march back down the hall. “Destroy the Gelfling!”

“It’s too late. The Gelfling can’t heal it now,” skekNa hissed, afraid for the first time in several hundred trine.

“Best to be vigilant. The Great Conjunction isn’t here yet,” skekTah warned.

“You think they’ll do it?” the Slave Master asked. “Heal the crystal? Impossible!”

“They still could. This isn’t over until the triple suns are merged over our heads,” skekTah said, following the Emperor. “We shouldn’t count our eggs before they’ve hatched. skekTek is dead. More of us could still be lost.”

He left the gawking Slave Master behind, trailing the Emperor. Garthim lining the halls awoke, clattering and hissing as they abandoned their posts. They moved in mass to the crystal chamber, prepared to guard and fight at their master’s command. skekUng did not cease his war cries.

_“You have you. All you need. No one take that from you.”_

skekTah frowned, pausing his movements. Then he broke off down another hall, abandoning the company of the Emperor. He had a feeling that he now understood what Aughra had been saying.

He wouldn’t be skekUng’s puppet. He would be nobody’s puppet. He’d made his choice down in the catacombs. Maybe now was the time to stick to it.

.o.o.o.o.

skekZok was finishing the last of his prayer recitals when skekTah found him. The Podling choir was gone, led away by skekEkt minutes ago. skekShod and skekOk were off on their own, likely heading for the crystal chamber this very moment.

Perfect. Just what skekTah had wanted.

“skekZok, I need to speak to you.”

The Ritual-Master turned, blue eyes wide in surprise. Then his expression defaulted to its usual distant judgment. skekTah forced himself not to get offended. What he’d done, allying with skekUng, was nothing short of betrayal to the larger Skeksis. This was to be expected.

“What do you want, skekTah? Has the Emperor sent you to fetch me?”

“No. I came here of my own accord,” skekTah replied. “I did not want to ally with skekUng. I was coerced. Forced. Like I was with skekLach.”

“And you did not fight. Again,” skekZok guessed. “Only, rather than staying silent, you’ve come to tell me this time.”

“Yes,” skekTah said. “I have to. Before it’s too late.”

“Perhaps this is good timing. Things will change after the Great Conjunction. The hierarchy will shift, powers will be redistributed, and court members may be elevated or dropped based on past slights,” skekZok said, fingering his staff. “Your position will be greatly reevaluated due to the Gelfling, as will the Chamberlain’s.”

“skekTek is dead. The Gelfling are free.”

skekZok nearly dropped his staff. “What? When was this?”

“A bit ago. I thought you should know. skekUng will tell no one to avoid a panic,” skekTah replied.

“That line of thinking works if it were not the Scientist. The buffoon!” skekZok snarled. “Everyone will notice when he does not appear for the ritual. Where are the Gelfling? They must be found! I knew I should’ve slain the creature. Curse the Emperor for being greedy!”

“We all have to get to the crystal chamber. They’ll be there with the shard eventually,” skekTah urged.

“Yes, that is true,” the Ritual-Master mused. He straightened. “Come, Schemer! We must all unite beneath the crystal. For the future of our rule.”

skekTah watched the Ritual-Master stride from his chambers, gold and red robes billowing behind him regally. The Schemer felt a bit of weight fall off of his shoulders. Perhaps this wouldn’t end as badly as he’d thought.

If they indeed all went home, it would be best to stay on good terms with everyone. Betraying skekZok—no, ZokZah—had weighed heavily on him. Hopefully this would fix that conflict now.

The three suns were close. The Great Conjunction was rapidly approaching. It was time to go.

To the crystal chamber. To his fate.

.o.o.o.o.

urTao had not thought much on the concept of home. It was his duty to guide skekTah in that direction, to that line of thought. But the Planner himself had not dared to think on it very hard.

To go home, united as one being, was supposed to be good.

So why did he feel such doubt? Why did he now regret putting such a plan into motion?

It was much too late to regret his choices. The castle, once glittering and pure and beautiful, now sharp and dark and gloomy, loomed high above them. Skarith was dry and harsh yet it relented beneath the heavy footsteps of the urRu. Thra was welcoming them back.

A short while ago, as they exited the plain, urTih suddenly burst into flame and ash. Incinerated. Some distant part of urTao recognized the mode of death but he could not recall why it had happened. It was too long ago.

The line of urRu carried on. There was no time to mourn the Alchemist’s passing. The triple suns drew near to each other. They had to hurry.

The castle entrance was ahead, guarded by Garthim. The giant crustacean beasts waved their claws but did not attempt to attack. The urRu paused in their procession, heads lifting to give a long call. The crystal, trapped deep within the castle, sang in response.

urTao’s heart suddenly wasn’t in it. He wanted to urge the rest to turn around, to return to the valley. Perhaps this joining was not for the best.

What would become of who they were now? Of urTao and skekTah? Would they simply meld together? What parts would stand out? Would they both just disappear, trapped beneath whatever personality TahTao had? All three were so very different from each other.

The worry was suffocating. It only grew as the Garthim, cowed by the noise, shuffled aside to let the urRu through. The procession moved onward, stepping into the very place they had fled from 1000 trine ago.

urTao pushed his fears down. It was too late to turn around and flee now. It was time to return home, to give Thra back to its rightful owners. They as the invaders had to leave, one way or another.

He prayed he could cling to that line of thinking. He feared what would happened if he could not.

.o.o.o.o.

The Dark Crystal loomed high overhead, shining in the growing light of the brother suns. The Garthim moved into position, manning balconies and lining the chamber walls. They assumed vigilant positions in every conceivable nook and cranny. Not a single corner was left unseen by them.

Yet skekTah knew that to be untrue. If that was so, then the Gelfling would’ve been exposed already. He knew they were in here somewhere. They had to be. He just didn’t know where.

The Skeksis filed into the chamber, each line a differing number. skekUng and skekNa filed in from one entrance, the Scientist’s absence made very obvious. skekSil, skekEkt, and skekAyuk filed in from another entrance. skekZok led the last group, guiding skekShod, skekOk, and skekTah from a third entrance.

skekTah felt the gazes of the others on him. skekUng had probably guessed what was happening. skekSil too, if the Schemer had to presume. It was a pity none of them _really_ got what was going on.

Yes, he’d followed skekZok here. Only because the other urged him to. Because he felt safest with skekZok. But he was not skekZok’s puppet. He was nobody’s puppet.

skekTah was himself. Alone. Unafraid. And a complete traitor to them all.

skekZok moved forward, arms and staff raised to give the opening prayers. The edges of the suns began to mold together as they began their overlap. It would be mere minutes until the Great Conjunction was upon them.

skekTah’s heart was in his throat. His golden eyes scanned the room, searching for any hint of the Gelfling. He found nothing.

Where were they? Why weren’t they healing the crystal yet?

The babble of excitement around him nearly drowned out that distinctive noise, but skekTah’s sharp ears caught it. Barking. The fizzgig! It was here. And if it was here, then…

skekUng turned, having heard it too. On a balcony, almost hidden among the Podling choir, a hooded figure swatted at a familiar fuzzball. The Emperor bellowed. The figure jolted, hood falling back to reveal fair hair. The Gelfling from the lab!

skekSil suddenly screamed. skekTah whirled to see the Gelfling from the catacombs on another balcony. A sharp flash in its hand alerted the Schemer to the shard’s presence. Dodging a swipe from the Garthim now swarming the balconies, the Gelfling jumped.

And landed on the crystal!

The Skeksis shrieked and screamed in alarm. skekTah felt a smile worm onto his beak.

Until he heard the sound of something hitting the floor. Saw the Gelfling on the crystal reach out, shouting. Looked down to see the object every Skeksis’ gaze was now fixed on.

The crystal shard lay on the floor, glittering innocently in the sunlight.

Realization hit every Skeksis. Death had been so close to them. The prophecy hovered like a shroud over their heads. Death incarnate was here and its weapon of destruction lay on the floor before them all.

skekTah choked. Oh Thra, no! Now what? Should he grab the shard? Leave it? He didn’t know!

He didn’t get to choose.

skekUng lurched forward at the same time as the bouncing ball of fuzz—Fizzgig—reached the shard. The poor animal, confused as to why neither of its owners was present with the shard, turned and clamped its toothy jaws on the Emperor’s arm. skekUng fell back with a roar, flapping his arm before flinging the animal toward the crystal. Fizzgig gave a howl as it plunged down the shaft to certain death far below.

skekTah turned back to the shard, steeling himself to retrieve it…and froze when the fair-haired Gelfling fluttered in front of him, plucking the shard from the floor. It spun, thrusting the shard like a dagger at skekNa when he moved toward it. skekTah stepped back, watching the Gelfling spin and swipe at any Skeksis foolish enough to try and grab it.

skekUng snarled, red eyes narrowed with hate as he awaited an opening. skekNa circled, waiting for the same. skekSil stepped forward, trying to convince the Gelfling to surrender the shard. He sounded very much like he did in the ruins, promising safety and freedom. skekTah felt pleased when the Gelfling swiped at the Chamberlain too. skekSil backed off with an offended whimper. The rest of the Skeksis babbled in panic and watched, calling out encouragement to the Emperor and Slave Master.

Encouragement that suddenly faded into a faint buzzing. The world suddenly got much blurrier. skekTah stumbled, expecting the shard to stab him in response. Nothing happened. It was as if the Gelfling couldn’t see him.

Or maybe…this was all in his head…

“Not again,” he croaked, head suddenly pounding.

It was like in the catacombs. Was this another vision? Some kind of hallucination? He didn’t want to go back into that limbo. Once was enough.

“Hurry! There, he’s right there!”

“I’m coming! Good Thra, you’re pushy for someone so small!”

“Just move, TekTih! We’re almost out of time!”

“Huh?” skekTah looked up, beak dropping open at the sight. “…skekTek?”

The image seemed to flicker violently in front of him, the two approaching figures shifting between urSkek and Skeksis. He recognized one as skekTek—TekTih—but it was the other that made him hesitate. He barely recognized them. No surprise since they had died almost immediately after the division.

“YiYa?” skekTah choked.

The smaller Skeksis, almost a head shorter than him, looked so foreign compared to the withered elder that he was guiding. skekYi looked so youthful. Age hadn’t touched him at all. skekTek hobbled behind him, one gnarled hand clutching his cane while the other was caught between both of skekYi’s smooth, wrinkle-less hands.

The world around him was a smeary mess of color. skekTah couldn’t see the Gelfling or his fellows. He wasn’t even sure he was awake anymore.

“What are you doing here?” skekTah said. “You’re both… Both…”

“Spit it out already. We’re dead. We both know!” skekTek spat, irritated. “And no, you’re not dead. Not yet.”

“TekTih, hurry!” skekYi urged, tugging skekTek over to skekTah. “We’re here to help you, TahTao. I told SoSu that you needed us but no~, he said you had to do it alone!”

“Defiant little thing,” skekTek hissed, though it had no real malice in it. He reached out, tapping skekTah’s cumbersome carapace with his talons. “This’ll just get in your way. You’ve got to get rid of it.”

“What? No! My back will break!” skekTah argued.

“TahTao, trust me! You’ll be fine!” skekTek—no, it was TekTih now, golden hand on that spiky carapace—said firmly. “You won’t die. But you will if you keep this on.”

“But my back—”

“—will be fine,” TekTih insisted. “Call this a final gift from me. Just don’t waste it.”

“It’ll be okay, TahTao!” YiYa said with a cheery smile. “Everything will be okay.”

The world was beginning to sharpen again. skekTah shook his head, trying to cling to the images before him. TekTih was already fading but YiYa remained in focus for a few moments longer. Something clawed its way into skekTah’s brain, forcing itself out of his beak.

“Why weren’t you there? In the limbo? I didn’t see you there,” skekTah demanded.

YiYa smiled, though it was sad. “Because I didn’t indulge in my darkness. I wasn’t allowed to. I died before that, TahTao…so I ended up somewhere even lonelier.”

“TekTih, will he—”

“He’ll be okay. I’m going back with him now. I won’t let him suffer alone. I won’t let any of them. Not anymore. But you have a job to do, TahTao.” YiYa smiled, fading away. “Don’t be scared. We all have faith in you. You’ll do the right thing. You always have, even if you never realize it.”

skekTah blinked and it was all gone. TekTih and YiYa and that blurry world. He was still standing. It was as if time had stopped moving for that brief instant.

The Gelfling spun, still stabbing with the shard. skekNa circled. skekUng watched. The rest of the court panicked. Atop the crystal, the dark-haired Gelfling shouted warnings to its friend.

And his back felt confined, like a coiled spring. skekTah frowned, daring to straighten from his hunched position. He expected a bolt of pain…and got nothing. Nothing but a sharp clattering of loose parts in his carapace. Absolutely no pain.

As if his back…was not broken.

_“This’ll just get in your way. You’ve got to get rid of it.”_

_“You won’t die. But you will if you keep this on.”_

skekTah frowned, reaching back to finger the latch that helped him remove his carapace at night. If his back was not broken…then why restrain himself like this? It made no sense but…if this was actually happening…

He flipped the latch and felt his carapace fall away. skekOk shrieked behind him, yelling at him to be more careful. skekTah straightened, feeling his back pop. Relief flooded him as the tension from his hunched posture faded away.

No pain. No metal parts bolted in his back. It was like the surgery—no, the fall itself—had never happened. How?

_“Call this a final gift from me. Just don’t waste it.”_

urSkek magic. TekTih must’ve healed him from beyond the grave. Such things should be impossible.

Yet he was the evidence now. His back was healed. He wasn’t hurting. He could move.

…He could fight…

skekNa lunged, managing to catch the Gelfling at last. It was only for a moment, but it was all that was needed. The Slave Master grinned toothily, yanking the Gelfling close in order to kill it, to liberate the accursed shard from its grasp and save them all. Victory was his!

skekNa’s triumphant grin shattered as he suddenly howled, agony bursting from his leg. The Gelfling tore free from his now slack grip, hidden behind the bulk of the Schemer’s turned back. A back that no longer bore his spiky carapace or the heavy rigging of his back brace. skekNa couldn’t understand exactly what he was seeing. Had he missed something?

“skekTah! Have you gone mad?” skekUng roared, surging to his ally’s side.

“His tail! It has spikes!” skekEkt shrieked.

“He’s betrayed us for the Gelfling!” the Chamberlain declared.

The Schemer turned, talons outstretched, beak parted in a hiss. His tail, free from the cover of his robes, whipped and cracked as the serrated spines growing from it gave off a rattle of warning. His back, free of his heavy carapace and rigging, revealed the curved spines and withered secondary arms that marked him as a Skeksis. He looked like a wild thing, like no cultured member of the court.

And skekTah felt wild. Wild and free. Like he was about to snap at any moment…and he wanted it. Wanted to snap. Needed to snap.

Because it would save them all.

“Kira, trust him!” the Gelfling atop the crystal called. “He’ll help you!”

He could smell it. urRu. They weren’t far away, slowly ascending to this chamber. He had to hold the others off, keep the Gelfling and the shard safe.

He had to. Because they needed to go home. All of them. Together.

Enough death had happened. Too many had lost their lives as is. It was time to put an end to all of this suffering, all of this pain. It was time to close this book on Skeksis and urRu permanently.

It was time to go home.

“skekTah! Get out of the way!” skekUng roared.

skekTah turned to face him, eyes wild. The snap was upon him. The suns were joining above them, growing larger and larger with every passing second. This was his last chance to make a difference, to fix everything.

SoSu’s words came back to him. And Thra, were they fitting.

“I will do what I must, no matter the cost.”

He gave skekUng a moment to process those words. Then skekTah pounced upon his Emperor, the snap swallowing him whole.


End file.
